Improve Working Memory?

A Brainpower Newsletter subscriber sent me the following question about working memory:

It seems that the best way to increase overall intelligence is to increase working memory, but I find many brain training programs that might help with that boring. Video or computer games, like one that involves air traffic controlling, might be more interesting and useful. My question for you is what's the best way to increase working memory, and do you know of such games?

My answer:

Many researchers agree with you that working memory is the basis of intelligence. It is defined (more or less), "the structures and processes used for temporarily storing and manipulating information in short-term memory." In other words, the process of holding things in our minds while we use them to think. Working memory is considered by many to consist of the brain's central components for reasoning and problem-solving.

Research that shows we cannot hold more than a few things in our working memory at one time. When it appears that we are working with more, it is because we "chunk" items, like separating phone numbers into three and four digit groups which are then remembered each as one thing. This kind of "chunking" is an obvious way to improve the efficiency of our thinking, although it does not increase capacity itself.

Now for the good news. I recently read about experiments done by Torkel Klingberg, a cognitive neuroscience professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, in which working memory seemed to be improved. Subjects were shown one number after another on a computer screen and then asked to recall the one just before the one on the screen at the moment. They did this relatively quickly, but were much slower when asked to recall the number shown two or three numbers before the one on the screen at the moment.

What was interesting is that with practice there did seem to be some increased ability to recall those earlier numbers - and more quickly. This is seen by some as evidence of the expansion of working memory. Others say that that it may just result from learning to better identify the "position" of the numbers, which may not involve any improvement in working memory.

In time we'll see if the research results are replicated, and the alternate explanations ruled out. If so perhaps specific exercises will be developed that can be proven to improve working memory. In the meantime, any mental exercises that seem to target working memory are probably good for brain function in general, even if it turns out that they do not directly improve working memory.

I don't have any recommendations for computer games, although I recall a card game from childhood that I believe we called "Concentration." All of the cards are laid face down on a table and spread out. Then two cards are flipped face up by a player. If they match the player gets to keep the pair and try again. Otherwise the cards are again flipped face-down and the turn ends.

Of course the difficulty is in remembering where all the various cards are.That way, for example, when you flip over a "six" you can recall where another six was previously exposed and turn it over to win the pair. The player with the most pairs at the end (when the cards are all off paired up) wins. Certainly this game involves working memory, and whether or not it specifically improves that, it is a good mental workout.

I am sure that there are some decent computer games for this, and there will be more made. I like your idea of a air traffic controller game. I imagine that would require a real exercising of working memory, since a player presumably would need to keep in kind and work with several bits of information at once. Keeping track of planes landing and taking off is not a job I would want, but as a game it might be fun to try.

Like yourself, I get bored with many memory and concentration games. On the other hand, if one has a decent working memory to start with, I'm not sure that seeking to improve it would give the biggest gains in thinking ability. Consider for a moment all the people working on this problem, most of whom are probably not doing many exercises themselves to try to improve it. What leads them to new discoveries is the approach they take. Though most of these researchers are likely intelligent, this reasoning and creativity is not based on raw intelligence alone, but on how they use it.

A change of perspective, for example, or the willingness to challenge existing assumptions, can lead to new discoveries, new knowledge. A higher IQ would not necessarily encourage this nor help. So although a way to improve working memory - and the presumed IQ boost that would come with it - would be nice, there are other things we can do to increase the efficiency of our thinking and the creativity of our problem solving. As I have said many times, once we have a minimum level of basic intelligence, how we use it becomes more important than the measure of our raw brainpower.

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