A collection of anecdotal evidence from players is available in Gwern’s great n-back FAQ.
I’ve played for some two months earlier this year and my max level was 8. I haven’t really noticed anything, but since I took no tests prior or after the training I can’t really say a firm thing about it. The experience of getting better in n-back is exhilarating and bewildering enough that I plan to resume playing it soon. I mean, at the earlier levels I often felt intensely that a certain next level I just got to is physically impossible to beat, and behold, after a few days it seemed manageable, and after a week or so, trivial. All of this without any conscious learning process taking place, or any strategy coalescing. It’s an especially unadulterated example how a brain that gets rewired feels from the inside.
Yes, I know the same feeling (and have remarked on it once or twice on the DNB ML) - it’s very strange how over a day or two one can suddenly jump 10 or 20% on a level and have a feeling that eg. suddenly D4B is clear and comprehensible, while before only D3B was and D4B was a murky mystery one had difficulty keeping in one’s head.
On the other hand—D8B? Dammit! I’ve been at n-backing for something like 2 years now, and have been stuck on D4B for months. You, Jonathan, and Will just go straight to D4B or D8B within a few months with ease. I must be doing something wrong.
(On a sidenote, as in the FAQ, I ask people for their negative or null reports as well as their positive ones. This thread is unusual in 2 null reports to 1 positive, but I’m sure there are more LWers who’ve tried!)
A collection of anecdotal evidence from players is available in Gwern’s great n-back FAQ.
I’ve played for some two months earlier this year and my max level was 8. I haven’t really noticed anything, but since I took no tests prior or after the training I can’t really say a firm thing about it. The experience of getting better in n-back is exhilarating and bewildering enough that I plan to resume playing it soon. I mean, at the earlier levels I often felt intensely that a certain next level I just got to is physically impossible to beat, and behold, after a few days it seemed manageable, and after a week or so, trivial. All of this without any conscious learning process taking place, or any strategy coalescing. It’s an especially unadulterated example how a brain that gets rewired feels from the inside.
Yes, I know the same feeling (and have remarked on it once or twice on the DNB ML) - it’s very strange how over a day or two one can suddenly jump 10 or 20% on a level and have a feeling that eg. suddenly D4B is clear and comprehensible, while before only D3B was and D4B was a murky mystery one had difficulty keeping in one’s head.
On the other hand—D8B? Dammit! I’ve been at n-backing for something like 2 years now, and have been stuck on D4B for months. You, Jonathan, and Will just go straight to D4B or D8B within a few months with ease. I must be doing something wrong.
(On a sidenote, as in the FAQ, I ask people for their negative or null reports as well as their positive ones. This thread is unusual in 2 null reports to 1 positive, but I’m sure there are more LWers who’ve tried!)
I did maybe 10-15 half-hour sessions of mostly D5B-D6B last year over the course of a few weeks and didn’t notice any effects.
Thanks; I’ve added it.
All the links to your FAQ in this thread are broken. Does the FAQ still exist?
Oh sure, it’s just that I finally built a real website (as opposed to continuing to abuse Haskell.org’s free hosting): http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ
Needless to say, it’s been expanded a lot since then.