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Working memory, Starcraft and Fluid Intelligence
[Apologize if this is in the wrong place, first thread ^_^
Also I will update this as/when I can and I apologize if it’s a touch slapdash. I think this topic deserves better than what I’ve written (more/deeper analysis etc.). But, I’m a touch excited and I don’t have a lot of time before other engagements.]
I have just read an article that I enjoyed on working memory on the nytimes website. It is located HERE.
I am posting this, first, because I just think it’s an interesting article worth the time (short) it takes to read it.
Second, I’m very curious as to whether someone else has posted something similar to the following on TL before. In hindsight it seems quite clear now, but a quick search yielded nothing. Please let me know if there is! 
Third, and most importantly, to me, I believe it is very much related to Starcraft. I believe that Starcraft exemplifies and requires exactly this kind of thinking/thought processes.
It is my opinion, from what I’ve seen and experienced, that Starcraft is fundamentally a game about juggling as many things that you can think about as you can. You are interacting with the visual stimuli you receive via your keyboard and mouse via the impulses you send from your brain to the muscles in your arm, wrist and fingers. As you do this there are many tasks that you have to accomplish. You have to execute so many different tasks in the best/most efficient order that you can. It seems as if, if you have a larger working memory you will be able to better execute these tasks.
As an example, I think that as you play the game here are some thoughts you might have to quickly cycle through: spread creep, hit injects, look at minimap, think briefly about what your opponent is doing, think about how you should respond to that, look at minimap, make overlords, remember that your lair is about to finish and that you need to start an upgrade, spread creep, move lings, etc. etc. (I don’t play Z btw) I think these all qualify as things that are stored in your working memory. The better your working memory the better you can play SC. N.B. I think that there are many other important factors as well of course: how well you can move your hands around the keyboard, your knowledge of the game (with regards to timings, composition, etc.) how comfortable you are, your mood etc. etc.
If you can accept a relation between working memory and prowess at SC, then a few other questions spring to mind:
1. Does SC function at all similarly to the games presented in the article i.e. does SC improve Working memory
1a) does it affect all levels equally?
2. Does having a high level of fluid intelligence correlate with skill at SC?
Following these questions of course are the questions of how to find the answers to them. For now, the only things I can imagine are the following tests. (all using Raven’s progressive matrices. A test that’s quite fun. At least for me. @_@.)
1. Testing SC pros/masters level or whatever vs a set of similarly matched populace. (same age, similar levels of education completed, similar socio-economic conditions growing up, etc etc.)
2. (easier test IMO) getting people to play the game for a set period of time and testing them afterwards (say after 4 weeks, 8 weeks etc.) and comparing with the before tests.
3. Other more complex tests, like playing N-Back tests and then playing SC, or playing SC vs. N-Back games in terms of increase in working mem.
With college kids it seems like test no. 2 would be fairly simple. What’s more, it seems like it wouldn’t be too difficult convincing the people to stick with the proscribed times. ☺
Then again…
And I found this quite interesting (from the article, regarding one of the improvement games) “Some people say it’s hard and really frustrating and really challenging and tiring.” Seems to fit SC pretty well in my opinion...
(super) Anecdotally, as my mechanics have improved in SC (and right now[for the past week] I’m just drilling through T builds for a couple hours a day on YABOT), I’ve felt as if I was getting through everyday tasks more effectively and efficiently. e.g. cooking, not burning the chicken as I chop the vegetables, turning the music up, eating, reading an article, putting things in the laundry, doing the dishes, changing the sheets, hanging up the clothes etc. ad nauseam all whilst thinking about the article I had just read. (I’m very, very curious as to whether anyone else has felt this???)
Please read the NYT article before posting….
Hope you like the thread… scary just postin’ shit that you actually care about…
Also, please let me know of typos etc. I don’t care too much but I guess it’s nice to have a clean-ish post.
Cheers, thanks for reading. And, peace.
edit: here's an N-Back game
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I don't think starcraft actually improves anything in real life. Most of the time it is just a racipe of bm.
Also, I know for sure it was a plague, at least for me on university. You\I become\became so good at multitasking that when you\I got a book in front of you, you are not able to focus on it. Or at least this happened to me.
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On April 19 2012 19:36 Sergio1992 wrote:
I don't think starcraft actually improves anything in real life. Most of the time it is just a racipe of bm.
Also, I know for sure it was a plague, at least for me on university. You\I become\became so good at multitasking that when you\I got a book in front of you, you are not able to focus on it. Or at least this happened to me.
I disagree. There are many lessons I learnt in sc2 that I can apply in my life.
There are also many lessons I have learnt throughout my life that I can apply to sc2.
"Multitasking" is always such a weird word, because you're not truly doing more than 1 thing at a time (unless you count automated stuff like breathing etc). You are, in fact, switching inbetween things as soon as you are able, and this is due to remembering stuff to do as said in the OP.
I'd like to think my "multitasking" in sc2 is at a decent level, and I don't have trouble focusing on a single thing when I have to.
Don't think it's fair to blame sc2 for something like that.
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wow, this is REALLY fascinating. i'm wondering though (playing the nback for 5 mins as i just have) if its just as valuable to sortof repeat things to yourself anf focus hard, or is it as effective to simply clear your mind and go with it if it 'feels' like its familiar.
if we really confirm over the next few years that this kind of training works, i really am excited. as for starcraft, i think improving fluid intelligence is immensely useful, and i will definitely be playing this N-Back game some more. the 'crystalized' intelligence is obviously a big part of learning sc, but fluid intelligence i would say has a large effect on improvement and on professional ability.
edit- reading the other posts it seems there is a bit of question on whether sc skill involves too much task-switching to be considered working memory improvement. personally i think having a good working memory will help in sc, but whether or not playing it does anything still remains to be seen (studies need to be done, conjecture is pointless).
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On April 19 2012 20:01 Clarity_nl wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2012 19:36 Sergio1992 wrote:
I don't think starcraft actually improves anything in real life. Most of the time it is just a racipe of bm.
Also, I know for sure it was a plague, at least for me on university. You\I become\became so good at multitasking that when you\I got a book in front of you, you are not able to focus on it. Or at least this happened to me. I disagree. There are many lessons I learnt in sc2 that I can apply in my life. There are also many lessons I have learnt throughout my life that I can apply to sc2. "Multitasking" is always such a weird word, because you're not truly doing more than 1 thing at a time (unless you count automated stuff like breathing etc). You are, in fact, switching inbetween things as soon as you are able, and this is due to remembering stuff to do as said in the OP. I'd like to think my "multitasking" in sc2 is at a decent level, and I don't have trouble focusing on a single thing when I have to. Don't think it's fair to blame sc2 for something like that.
what's your ranking? Just out of curiosity 
Anyway, probably it was just me. It is two days that I'm not playing starcraft and I founded that it was really beneficial for me
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THe thing with starcraft is that most people have plaed 1000's of games.
There really isnt much fluid thinking involved as new situations are genuinley rare. As in maybe 10-20% of games?
THe execution of starcraft reduces down to driving a car tbh imo - except the real world is far more varied than a game of sc2
I find in Go that when i take a small break i come back a stronger player than after periods of months of intense study.
It a tactic i used to use to over perform at tournaments. take a break.
It is also something I use at work. I can do as much in 4.5 hours as most peopel do in 7.5 because they manage their time so badly.
On April 19 2012 19:36 Sergio1992 wrote:
I don't think starcraft actually improves anything in real life. Most of the time it is just a racipe of bm.
Also, I know for sure it was a plague, at least for me on university. You\I become\became so good at multitasking that when you\I got a book in front of you, you are not able to focus on it. Or at least this happened to me.
that because you have no attention span. Thats your fault not sc2. If you want to get strong at studying go study.
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generally you can't increase your fluid intelligence and that begins entering decline starting after age 25-30 depending on what data you use,
if sc2 is a function of working memory it would show that older gamers are less effective than younger gamers.
one problem that the OP and Tortoise point out is that usually you play a lot of sc2, thus reducing the novelty component and reducing the influence of fluid intelligence, so it's similar to sudoku or other cognitive tasks, that rather than increasing total brainpower, it merely makes you really powerful at the subset of tasks you practice routinely, i.e.: logic games or computer games etc, and younger players would simply get more powerful faster than older players.
Also, in terms of the OP's suggestions, there were many posts from psychologists/psychology students on these forums and in other scientific articles referencing SC2 and studies using SC2, so you might look around for those
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Also the question of can you make yourself more intelligent is *REALLY* weird imo. That article is in general :D
Who cares about intelligence? Really intelligence is simply a measure of how good you are at IQ tests.
If you want to score higher on an IQ test the best way to do it is to practise them and figure out training strategies.
Intelligence is a really broken concept as an absolute measure (or even relative). I am allegedly very intelligent, doesn't mean i can keep a job. Thats pretty fucking dumb. So what do you want to measure?
I suggest you don't want to get more intelligent, you want to get better at something specific, solving problems, or multi tasking, or increasing memory. All those things can be done because they have a real application and measure. Intelligence is just messed up vague wooly concept. I can tell you now, being intelligent doesnt help put food in the table, hard bloody work does. I ahve never met anyone who can get paid to do anything on the basis of being intelligent - they get it because anyone who is worth anything has had to work their balls off to get ahead of the field. And everyone at most tasks are waay beyond the advantage a high level of intelligence will give someone. Sure intelligence can help you learn faster, but you can also learn how to learn faster directly ... so its no biggy.
What you get from really focusing on getting to be the best you can at a game is an approach and a mentality. If you want to get *REALLY* good you have to be not afraid of losing or winning. You cannot play for the end result your reasons for playing must be outside of the game.
But the main thing you get is a clear approach to learning a difficult and complex problem domain. If you consciously train at something and refine your approach that is a skill that is valuable and will place you *way* ahead of 90% of people. Which is one thing i was really surprised about. I was expecting the next generation of people (ie 25 and under) to be *far* better at learning new systems and being competitive than they are because of all the available games to learn stuff and refine through. But people are just playing games and its become another media to consume - when really the point of a game is to practice a skill for use in the real world imo (That and have fun ... but thats for kids to get them into it). the problem though is that now there are too many games so most people have a really superficial understanding of a lot rather than huge depth in a very few.
As for the decline of fluid intelligence as you age I am not sure that is true. What you have is an age group in the 40-70's who were directly taught that as you get older you cannot learn. There is no evidence for that in people that never stopped learning and constantly push themselves. You take old people who are developing alzheimers or parkinsons and you give them mind engaging games and they recover. You take grandparents who are losing their memory and general ability to do stuff and you put them in situations where they want/need it again and it starts to return. I am not kidding, my granddad was really shutting down mentally until my gran basically got ill and became an invalid. Now he is coming back to life and is doing and learning things he never did in his life before. And is cracking jokes again - which he was waay to slow to do before.
Your brain works how you use it and it gets better at the stuff you do more. If you want to get better faster than you naturally - and stay there - would you simply need to figure out how to reinforce what you want. You also have to bear in mind that there is a rate of loss also. I think that exists at all ages but I have got good at maybe 4-5 things now and i mean really good. The problem is that I don't have the time to keep 5 things well above average (Quake2, CSS, Go, Guitar, C# ) - I can maintain my level at 2 of them at once - barley. Nor does anyone. What I think people who are <20ish don't get is that they are only really good at 1-2 things (by really good i mean top 5% in the world (maybe even 1% when you consdier all the people who never try or give up immediately)- unless its something like chess but if you play a game like that seriously you know your place) because teens really isnt long enough to really master anything else - my point is that i am not saying you cant, just that you simply haven't had time yet. It takes years to get truly good at something and anyone on here reading this is really very very strong at starcraft - even people in diamond. Everyone is waaaaay above their natural limits - the evidence for that is stop playing for a month go back and discover that you have forgotten *loads*.
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EPT
