Crosswords don’t make you clever

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/08/quick-study-neuroscience

by nitins • 13 years ago

136 73 13 years ago

mathattack9• 13 years ago

I'm not sure I buy this. Wouldn't this suggest that natural athletes are better students? My limited sample size suggests that most of the best students I've known have not been athletes. Most have been musicians, though. I admit this could be correlation rather than causality.

I fully admit that teasing out correlation and causality is very difficult in situations like this.

candre717• 13 years ago

The article said nothing about playing music but rather listening to music. The difference is like saying I can learn through osmosis as opposed to I can learn through deliberate study and practice.

If the article actually compared the benefits of fitness to the benefits of playing music - now that could speak to your question.

mmuro• 13 years ago

It does:

  What about playing an instrument? Don’t you have to use right and left brain for a stringed instrument?

  Yes. That has clear cognitive functions that do crossover. Especially learning to play and read the music at the same time. But exercise is number one, diet number two and then social interaction. These are the important things for brain function.

lcedp• 13 years ago

Meaning if you want get better at math... practice math, not crosswords and not running. Crosswords make you better (primarily) at crosswords. Running - at running. But the idea is that math + physical activity suppose to make your better (at math inclusively) then math + crosswords.

mathattack9• 13 years ago

I do buy this. It would be interesting to see them quantify math * 2 versus math + running.

FootballMuse• 13 years ago

Perhaps they do, but I wouldn't restrict it to just being "better students" or not.

"elite athletes...perform better than the rest of us in yet another way. These athletes excel...in how fast their brains take in and respond to new information -- cognitive abilities that are important on and off the court." [1]

[1] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130318151634.ht...

mathattack9• 13 years ago

This seems more intuitive. Better athletes being quick on their feet figuratively as well as literally. This (and confidence) may be a reason that athletes make good salespeople. And it could explain why so many are traders.

I've seen much less as research professors or computer programmers. This could also be because the time commitments required in school for these topics is inconsistent with what's required to do sports competitively.

I'm not saying that exercise is bad. I'm positive that it's good. It's just my perception that those who exercise more in their youth tended not to be the best students.

001sky• 13 years ago

student=/=intelligence

Fallacy right there.

daraul• 13 years ago

The article does also point out that 'specific' games aren't apt to increase your brain function, which I took to imply that the idea that any one type of game is not the key.

In that regard, it would also be similar to the exercise comparison in that any single exercise is likely to have very limited impact, but a rounded exercise routine provides much stronger benefits.

agumonkey2• 13 years ago

In my little experience music requires many layers of unintuitive abstractions, that, when reached, give you that feeling not very far from the one when you get your aha! moment in mathematics, physics or any revelation~.

edit: maybe being good at both is a sign of an innate skill for abstraction, or maybe it's another way for a student to dive into a subject and grow new abstractions and reinforce his brain.

mathattack9• 13 years ago

This is a topic I've been getting very interested in lately. The correlation between music and math/technology success is high. I used to think it was that "disciplined people who like to be inside do both".

Now I think there may be some causality. Learning music is an intro to binary math. (2 half notes in a whole note. Two quarter notes in a half note.)

I haven't seen a good empirical study to try and split this apart.

mpg33• 13 years ago

I don't think the article is stating that athletes are smarter....but that exercise is good for the brain. From what I have noticed after exercising, especially cardio-related exercise, I tend feel better and am able to concentrate better than usual.

mhurron• 13 years ago

A healthy body promotes a healthy mind. Basically if you want your stuff to work right, you need to keep it in good working order.

aplusbi• 13 years ago

Student athletes have less time and energy to devote to school work. Speaking from personal experience, it's pretty hard to do homework when you have 2-3 hours of practice after school everyday. First, you lose 2-3 hours of time every day and second you get home exhausted.

dagw3• 13 years ago

Based on my equally limited sample size (based largely on looking around while working on my Masters in math) I disagree with you findings. Lots of people in the math departments where physically active, certainly more so than where musical (although a there was a fair bit of overlap).

jcl• 13 years ago

It suggests that regular exercisers are better students, not that better athletes are. In particular, just because some exercise is good, it doesn't necessarily mean more is better.

ltcoleman• 13 years ago

I 100% agree with this article in my own life. Went through a huge lifestyle change, and noticed my entire life and cognitive ability grow once I started exercising, getting out more, and really experiencing life with friends and family. If you want to be lazy that's fine, but after having my eyes open to a better, more energetic, more intelligent self, I would never go back to the couch and bon bons

frank_boyd• 13 years ago

"Relevant": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Diy0RNe_c

rickdale• 13 years ago

In my experience, there is time for gym workouts, sun bathing, crosswords and Mozart. What would be interesting would be studying how these four activities affect brain waves doing them in different sequences. For example, listen to Mozart, then workout, then crosswords, then sun bathe, reverse the order tomorrow and then continue to switch it up and see if you can optimize activities based on when you do them and what you were doing previous to the activity.

jonnathanson3• 13 years ago

My guess is that the same principle applies to crosswords (for example) that applies to lifting weights: you have to keep ramping up the difficulty in order to realize the benefits. If you're just doing the easy/comfortable crossword puzzle every day, you're not challenging yourself. A cognitive task that is actually challenging will probably yield a lot better results. Learning a new language, studying a new level of mathematics, taking up a new hobby, learning chess, etc. Every time a task becomes trivial, you need to increase the difficulty or find another task.

As for "listening to Mozart," that strikes me as an extremely passive (i.e., cognitively untaxing) activity. I've always been highly skeptical of the putative benefits of listening to music, because the brain is extremely good at "tuning out" ambient sounds. I'd be more inclined to believe there's some benefit if the listener actively attempts to listen and perform another task simultaneously. Trying to keep attention focused on two very complex tasks at once is challenging; simply kicking back and letting music stream in the background is not. I'm sure there are creative benefits to listening to complex and stimulating music, but one needs to be actively engaged in the music.

mrbrowning• 13 years ago

I believe when articles like this one talk about "listening to Mozart," they are indeed referring to active listening, which taxes recall (with regards to things like ongoing restatements of a prominent motive) and working memory (with regards to things like key changes or thematic development). In my intuitive experience, it tends to be a task that requires a certain threshold of concentration to even happen at all, like juggling. As with juggling, you could probably learn to combine another activity with it, but the benefits seem like they would be tenuous.

nicholassmith3• 13 years ago

That principle fits, when training you have to make progressions and move up a weight level or increase your reps, or you plateau and don't see as many improvements. I imagine it's similar for 'mental muscles', you'll need to push your boundaries to build your levels.

dredmorbius• 13 years ago

As for "listening to Mozart," that strikes me as an extremely passive activity.

My lay theorizing on this: certain types of music (and much of the classical repetoire) helps relax the mind. We spend far too much of our time being grossly overstimulated, and I've found that a great many of the typical stimulations in a Western experience (advertising, technology, popular music, city streets, etc.) simply wear at me. Nature, nonlinear landscapes, classical (or earlier) Western music (there is some awfully annoying non-western music, Indonesian gamelan being very high on the annoyance list for me) help immensely in this regard.

Just as strength training is stimulus for growth that comes during recovery, I suspect music may be part of the downtime which helps the brain and/or emotional / stress aspects of the body recover. Meditation or similar practices might operate similarly.

Total armchair theory here, but it's what I've got.

mathattack9• 13 years ago

All you have to do to make time is turn off the TV. :-)

nrivadeneira• 13 years ago

And the internet.

peterwwillis3• 13 years ago

I went to a conference on Multiple Sclerosis with a friend who has the disease, and one of the much-hyped research topics (this was a few years ago) was how more and more papers are finding a link between low levels of Vitamin D and severity of the disease. Essentially, vitamin D may lesson symptoms or even make you less susceptible to the disease.

This is a pretty good article about natural vs supplemental Vitamin D intake: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/vitamin-d-sun-exposure-supple...

lifebeyondfife• 13 years ago

An example: Calcium is required for good bone strength/density. However, Vitamin D deficiencies mean the body can't absorb enough calcium.

With regard to the "natural vs supplement" argument, some people are very pale and susceptible to skin cancer. It may not be safe for everyone to get enough Vitamin D through natural means alone.

Dewie3• 13 years ago

Pale skin also means that you need less sun exposure to get enough D vitamins.

olaf2• 13 years ago

Calcium seems no longer to be the best nutrition for strong bones: eat fresh herbs instead (see video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuiKYe_HrAc IIRC at 01:55 minutes [german language])

speeder• 13 years ago

Actually some research has shown that the darker your skin, the more likely you will have Vitamin D issues.

What cause most Vitamin D issues today is that people are NOT enough in the sun...

I personally dislike the sun and used to avoid it a lot (because I am more or less white and it burns me fast), now I have a really bad Vitamin D deficiency and was obliged by the medics to take supplements.

I stopped avoiding the sun... But it is still not really enough (I am programmer... I wake up in a dark room, walk to work in the sun, but the walk is 5 minutes, and then I stay indoors until night, when I walk back home, without any sun, thus my total sun daily is 5 minutes :/)

freyr2• 13 years ago

Interestingly, neither the current linked article nor the original article referenced Vitamin D or even the benefits of sunlight.

The original article linked to a scientific study in which nocturnal animals (rats) were exposed to light over long time periods, which caused the rats to get stressed and depressed.

Apparently, the article's author concluded from this that diurnal animals like humans must get stressed and depressed by long periods of darkness. Probably true, but certainly not supported by the cited study. And it had nothing to do specifically with sunlight, per se.

Dewie3• 13 years ago

- Unprotected exposure to sunlight also prematurely ages ones skin and increases the risk of skin cancer. I'm curious if there is some unique property with sunlight that makes you smarter, or if it is just the fact that you get D vitamins from sun exposure. If it is the latter, I can get D vitamins from my diet instead.

Personally I've lived 61 degrees north for most of my life and I don't think SAD has been a problem for me.

- I've suspected and read from others that all the fuzz about classical music is mostly the result of some kind of high culture bias - I have a hard time believing that people have studied the effects of classical music to the same extent as something like rock or techno. I wouldn't be surprised if studies show that listening to your favourite music has overall more benefits compared to listening to classical music whether you like it or not.

lnanek2• 13 years ago

There have been studies about songs with vocals vs. songs without vs. white noise while working. I guess it is pretty obvious in hindsight, but vocals just distract you, so white noise works best, followed by something without like classical, and then finally other music.

freyr2• 13 years ago

The cited scientific study was actually performed on nocturnal animals (rats), and the scientists found that long exposure to light caused the rats stress:

"...the brain of nocturnal rats generates a stress response to a long-day photoperiod, contributing to depression..."

Somebody must have extrapolated from this result that, since humans are diurnal, long periods of darkness would cause us stress and depression.

There is no direct mention of Vitamin K (or for that matter, any healthful benefits of the sun) in the cited study.

brianbreslin2• 13 years ago

it's too bad half the links cited in this article say (paywall) behind them. /rant

wil421• 13 years ago

While I am glad they included (paywall), any news article or blog entry that uses sources behind a paywall should rethink using those sources. When I read an article I like to look at the sources they use to determine if the information seems valid to me.

josephby• 13 years ago

...and then you can depend on the kindness of strangers to fund that wonderful journalism.

thehigherlife• 13 years ago

It's too bad on a site that exists for upstarts and tech minded folk looking for a way to monetize their projects people complain that good interesting content costs money. /rant

gwern• 13 years ago

The links to research we are talking about (as opposed to journalists trying to summarize research for pop sci books) is stuff whose production is funded almost entirely by entities like governments and charities, and where the 'publisher' does not do much but enjoy exorbitant profit margins thanks to paywalls. If the publishers and their paywalls disappeared overnight, Open Access would pick up the slack pretty well. So no, monetizing is not really necessary here.

brianbreslin2• 13 years ago

i actually would be happy to pay for content, no one has managed to build a seamless way of doing it though.

radarsat1• 13 years ago

I wouldn't say, though, these activities are mutually exclusive.

JackFr• 13 years ago

Edit: This is odd. The link currently leads to a different article than it initially did. Initially it was not Q & A with the author, but rather references to literature mostly behind paywalls and the gratuitous reference to female orgasms, none of which are in the current article. That being said, I still believe that the bulk of this research is bullshit, but it's a little unfair to switch the article, so my comment no longer makes sense

-------

While the presence "neuroscience" should be enough to set off your bullshit detector, the fact the the author couldn't go two paragraphs without undermining his own point indicates that the title should really be "Nothing to see here". Luckily the author throws in a gratuitous and creepy reference to female orgasms to make sure readers won't feel ripped off having wasted 15 seconds reading this crap.

callum85• 13 years ago

How does the content of this article justify the straight-up factual assertion in the headline? This is just a thing about some guy speculating about some stuff. The headline implies a conclusive clinical trial result. HNers should know better than to upvote this kind of shit.

EDIT: I wrote the above when the title was "Gym workouts and sunbathing do more for your brain than crosswords and Mozart" and the link was to a different URL.

hmahncke• 13 years ago

Not mentioned in the article, but since you asked:

Cognitive training outperforms crossword puzzles: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...

Crossword puzzles aren't protective against cognitive decline: http://portalsaudebrasil.com/artigospsb/idoso068.pdf [PDF link]

thehme• 13 years ago

I am glad to finally find an article that has made it into the popular media, which will aid in debunking a lot of those false claims made by people/companies who just want to make money out of people’s gullibility. There are commercials on TV for some website that claim their mind games will improve your brain, possibly knowing there is no science to back that up, but you have people spending their $$/time sitting at a computer playing games, rather than at the gym or exploring our world’s beautiful outdoor spaces. The “funny” thing is that science is showing that the benefits of motherly nurturing, exercise, social interaction (not social networking online), exposure to sunlight, etc. are all things we all know too well from experience and yet, there are some people/companies still trying to sell us things/services to achieve things we can get for FREE.

tokenadult• 13 years ago

A current book review of the newly published book Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/brainwashed-neuroscience...

goes into some additional detail about what we can know, and can't know, from current neuroscience research. The best of current neuroscience research helps us know what is flat wrong about earlier preliminary findings from neuroscience research, while the worst of current neuroscience research feeds on the hype hooks in the science news cycle

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174

to tell us things we want to believe even if they aren't true. As always, we have to discern what's established fact and what's speculation in reports about new research findings.

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

chrisdl• 13 years ago

but it might help with alzheimers http://puzzles.about.com/library/bl021108.htm

eksith• 13 years ago

Crosswords indirectly affect my performance.

I don't think they make me clever either, but they do calm me down and help me settle into whatever area I'm in. That helps me take the edge off of what I'm about to say/present. It's not quite the same as staring at a flashlight (a la tablet/laptop).

The paper and pencil in my hands have a dramatic effect on my mood. Add a cup of coffee on the side and I'm a completely different person after a crossword. I'd say a noticeably more lucid (even without the added coffee), calm and collected individual.

Crosswords don’t make you clever

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