For improving cognitive abilities it is a good idea to get wealthy.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6149/976

Whether or not working memory capacity is related to IQ

is being discussed, however there is the suggestion to

use working memory performance as a measure for

prediction of learning success.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/dec/16/tracy-packiam-alloway-working-memory

http://www.nature.com/news/1998/040412/full/news040412-3.html

http://www.news.gatech.edu/2013/10/08/%E2%80%98brain-training%E2%80%99-may-boost-working-memory-not-intelligence

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/greater-working-memory-capacity-benefits-analytic-but-not-creative-problem-solving.html

http://phys.org/news/2010-11-clarity-short-term-memory-link-iq.html

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/19/6829.full?origin=publication_detail

Regards,

Joachim

Hi Joachim,

Thank you for your thoughts and for a lot of interesting reedings.

Best,

Jesper

Hi Jesper,

You're reading of the literature is pretty much bang on. The modification of IQ is a debated topic. More specifically, most are interested in increasing fluid intelligence (reasoning ability). Like Joachim mentioned, many researchers in this field consider the improvement of working memory to be the answer. Despite a few significant (and publicly inflated) findings, however, most research yields null findings regarding an increase in IQ/fluid abilities. If you're interested about this, have a look at some of the work done by Randy Engle and his team (link attached). I saw him answer this exact question after an invited talk at the Intelligence conference last year. He very strongly believed that increasing IQ was not possible. You can teach people strategies for handling various types of cognitive processes that improve their efficiency, but NOT increase their capacity/ability.

http://englelab.gatech.edu/

Source:

http://theconversation.com/ignore-the-iq-test-your-level-of-intelligence-is-not-fixed-for-life-30673?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+27+August+2014+-+1877&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+27+August+2014+-+1877+CID_e4d3d86437ddb884361ddf2573411126&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=Ignore%20the%20IQ%20test%20your%20level%20of%20intelligence%20is%20not%20fixed%20for%20life

Defined loosely, intelligence refers to our ability to learn quickly and adapt to new situations. IQ tests measure our vocabulary, our ability to problem-solve, reason logically and so on.

But what many people fail to understand is that if IQ tests measured only our skills at these particular tasks, no one would be interested in our score. The score is interesting only because it is thought to be fixed for life.

Those who hang dearly onto the notion that IQ is fixed for life have managed to ignore decades of published research in the field of applied behaviour analysis. This has reported very large IQ gains in children with autism who have been exposed to early intensive behavioural interventions once they have been diagnosed with learning difficulties.

Another 2009 Norwegian study examined the effects of an increase in the duration of compulsory schooling in Norway in the 1960s which lengthened the time in education for Norwegians by two years. The researchers used records of cognitive ability taken by the military to calculate the IQ of each individual in the study. They found that IQ had increased by 3.7 points for every extra year of education received.

One recent pilot study showed that we can considerably raise standard IQ scores by training children in relational language skills tasks over a period of months. Again, this finding challenges the idea that intelligence is fixed for life.

So it’s about time we reconsidered our ideas about the nature of intelligence as a trait that cannot be changed. Undoubtedly, there may be some limits to the development of our intellectual skills. But in the short term, the socially responsible thing to do is not to feel bound by those limits, but to help every child work towards and even exceed them.