The Mensa Workout--How it Helps us Understand How to Improve IQ

Try the following examples from Mensa's IQ workout, which can be found on the Mensa International website, or by Googling ‘Mensa workout’.

This type of problem - finding abstract relations and rules in the elements of geometrical shapes - is the most valid way of measuring fluid intelligence: our ability to reason and problem solve in new situations where we cannot rely on previous experience or knowledge. The cognitive skills needed to solve these types of problems lies at the core of our general intelligence – our general cognitive ability.

Fluid intelligence can be thought of as our raw brain power or information processing efficiency. We can invest our fluid intelligence into acquiring specific areas of knowledge and expertise, in this way building up our store of ‘crystallized intelligence’. But what takes someone with a lot of fluid intelligence just one month to learn might take someone with less fluid intelligence six months to learn.  And when someone with a lot of crystallized intelligence but not much fluid intelligence is confronted with a new situation they are unfamiliar with, they will find it difficult to know what to do. Someone with more fluid intelligence will find this kind of situation easier to deal with. So fluid intelligence is closer to what we mean by being ‘smart’ – to real brain power.

What IQ tests measure—both brain power and what we know

Fluid intelligence is measured on IQ tests by reasoning and geometrical problems like the two above.  Crystallized intelligence is measured on IQ tests by vocabulary, arithmetic and general knowledge sub-tests. These test skills you have learned over time – that have become ‘crystallized’. Your overall IQ is your combined fluid and crystallized intelligence scores. There is generally a positive association between fluid and crystallized intelligence scores. Someone who score high on fluid intelligence typically (but not always) scores high on crystallized intelligence. Why? Because if you have a lot of brain power (fluid intelligence), during your education you will tend to absorb knowledge (like vocabulary) and skills (like mental arithmetic) more efficiently than someone who has less brain power.

How can we improve our IQ? Two strategies

We can figure out from what I’ve already said that there are two strategies for improving our IQ. We can either build up our knowledge and skills (crystallized intelligence) or we can increase our brain power – our information processing capacity and efficiency (fluid intelligence). If you train your arithmetic and your vocabulary you will score higher on an IQ test.  This is because your crystallized intelligence has increased. But in doing this your brain power won’t change. You won’t get a better score on an intelligence test that is designed to measure just your brain power.

Why do these Mensa Workout problems help us understand what is needed to improve IQ by increasing brain power?

Solving these problems depends on the same cognitive skill set that is needed for any thinking or problem solving that requires brain power - from figuring out how to fix the TV, to evaluating a political argument, to solving a computer coding problem. Anything that requires us to be ‘smart’ – and that does not depend on any crystallized intelligence,  any prior knowledge.

What are the elements of this skill set? Answer: executive cognitive processes

To help us understand the elements of this skill set, take question 26 in the Mensa workout. Notice the line in the bottom left corner and ignore the other stuff; in the next square it's in the top right corner, then it's back to the bottom left, then up again to the top right and so on. There's a pattern. So you can reason that the answer has to be b or c. Hold that in mind. Now look at the bottom right corner line. Next square there are two lines in the top left, next box there are three lines bottom right, next box four lines top left, then five bottom right. So the next has to be? Six lines top left. Only a and c show this. From before, we know that it can't be a. So we can conclude right there - without even looking at the other lines in the box, that the answer is c.

To solve this kind of problem we need to use what cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists called 'executive processes'. With executive processes we can't rely on an automatic response based on past experience to solve a problem - we have to reason it through with full attention.

Elements of executive processes

• We have to selectively attend to some information and ignore distracting information.
• We have to hold items of information in short term memory (what is known as 'working' memory').
• We have to do mental operations on the information  (e.g. 'add one') and update the information we are attending to as we are working through the problem.
• We also have to break the problem down into sub-tasks  and be strategic with our effort in different sub tasks. For  instance, there was another sub-task we could have done - looking at the other set of lines - but we didn't have to look at them. This involves monitoring how we're doing on the task by observing how our own mental processes work.

All these cognitive skills are the elements of executive processes. They lie at the heart of the ‘brain power’ aspect of what IQ tests measure. If a person  is good at  doing these things, the have more brain power.  And they will do well on the fluid intelligence sections of an IQ test.

The very good news is that our IQ can be increased  not only by improving our crystallized intelligence  (by practising arithmetic for instance), but also by training our executive processes. By training our executive processes we actually increase our fluid intelligence and brain power. We become ‘smarter’ in the most basic sense – better able to process any kind of information, and solve any kind of problem, not just ones we have prior knowledge about in a crystallized form. We can score higher on IQ tests by this kind of brain training without building on our store of crystallized intelligence.

How improve IQ by training our executive processes

In 2008 brain scientists at the University of Bern in Switzerland and the University of Michigan in the States, demonstrated that training on a carefully designed exercise that directly trains these working memory elements,  resulted in an incredible 40% gain in fluid intelligence as measured by a version of the time limited Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices test - one of the most valid and highly regarded IQ tests for fluid intelligence.

You can find a downloadable version of this exercise and more information on the original study at this website. With this software you can expect that in 19 days of training, half an hour per day, your brain power or fluid intelligence will increase by 40%. Studies have not been done to tell us exactly how long these changes last, but there is evidence for real, long-term changes in the brain. By doing this training, the connections between neurons (brain cells) in your prefrontal cortex actually increase in number. The prefrontal cortex is the brain centre that underlies our brain power – our fluid intelligence. This kind of change in brain circuitry is called brain plasticity or neuroplasticity. This executive process brain training is the only exercise that is available on the Internet that has been scientifically demonstrated to increase brain power.

Increasing your brainpower is a liberating experience.  Try it!