How to increase your IQ level ?

[arthwollipot]

Verifying the results my method yields in intelligence tests would require further research. But IQ levels can undoubtedly be raised.

Okay, so let's do some research. Let's come up with a protocol by which your method may be tested. How do you think we could do that?

 

[wise47]

Okay, so let's do some research. Let's come up with a protocol by which your method may be tested. How do you think we could do that?

You can suggest some idea.

 

[JayUtah]

You can suggest some idea.

Or you could. That’s what would mark you as a scientist.

 

[arthwollipot]

You can suggest some idea.

You're the one with the theory. I don't know for sure that what I might propose would actually test your theory. You need to determine how you would demonstrate your theory is true.

 

[Vixen]

Most people don't know what their IQ 'score' is in order to 'increase' your IQ level' [OP]. I can recall four fully supervised and independently proctored IQ tests, and they were: the 11+, entrance test to psychology course, Civil Service 'Fast Track' and British Mensa. Only the latter gave me a score and a certificate. The others were passes but without a score. IOW it is/was assumed to be of use only to education institutes and employers. As for practising, some parents might have got their kids to practise the 11+ but I don't recall ever practising, but then my parents weren't pushy. As I recall, only about six people from my junior school got into the local state grammar school, both, a nearly 2km walk, but the former was the sister Church of England school of my nearby infants school.

There were all together about 120 pupils in the first form, split into four classes. Traditionally, the 11+ pass mark was at the 80th percentile (top 20% of the local junior school population aged eleven that academic year). Depending on your twice-yearly exam results, you then got streamed in the second year depending on academic ability, as reflected in your first year exam results. As we all gathered on the first day of term in the gym hall, I can remember being firstly nervous and then elated to hear my name called out for the top stream, which technically, would be the top 5% (bearing in mind some very pushy, very wealthy, parents armed with private tutors outside school hours), split into four different forms. Ten academic O-Levels were on the syllabus, including two languages and three sciences. One influential local businessman managed to lobby the school into taking his son in the third form, in the top stream. It didn't increase this poor boy's IQ any, as he really struggled, coming bottom in almost everything. One sports day, he kicked me in the back, my being regularly top or at least in the top six. Another girl, whose only good subject was English Language, slammed me against a wall, when I took 'her spot' at being first in English (we had been friends until then, walking home from school together). Suffice to say, all of this was horribly distressing for me. The boy who bullied me became a good friend in adulthood (at least on FaceBook and via a school reunion years later) and he is very successful today in life running his own training company. The point is, no amount of extra tuition improved his cognitive ability in a competitive environment of academically able pupils.

I didn't get the score for the Civil Service Fast Track I passed or the honours degree entrance exam, either, but my tutor did tell me in passing I had the highest score they'd seen.

It was only in my early thirties, when I saw an advert that used to run in womens magazines, for Mensa. I think these puzzles were deliberately easy, to attract queries. I sent off the cut-out bit of the magazine in a moment of idle curiosity. I was sent a home test, which you complete under your own timing. That was sent back and then I received an invitation to go along to a supervised test. This was at Birkbeck College. I can recall some drilling noises suddenly starting up towards the end. Their invigilators are trained to supervise in exam conditions and to exact timing. They don't do the marking. The papers are sent off for this. They calculate raw scores on various parameters. When I received the results I was not particularly surprised, given my history of doing okay in such tests. Would I have been disappointed not to have passed? Hard to say. But I think they are probably as accurate as one could expect. As it was at the very top score end, it seems unlikely to be able to better it, given the lack of a decent sample size to be able to 'norm' it against. Mensa is a social club and I met one of my husband's there - we got on like a house on fire - whom I would never have met otherwise; plus got to visit in depth places around the country and people I may never have known except on a surface level. (Alas the marriage didn't last beyond seven years but we stayed friends.) However, sitting around eating dinner, which is a large part of the pastimes, never much interested me. Whilst societies such as Triple Nine Society claim a 'pass score' of 173, all they do is use tables to convert Mensa raw scores into their raw scores, so a Mensa score of 160 on Cattell converts to their score of 173.



I did join one such 'triple nine' club, which involved a self-timed home test, based on verbal ability, which you then send back. How well is it normed for accuracy? I don't know but I scored at roughly at the +sd 3.56 level (pass mark: +sd 3.17), and as offset against my Mensa score (which is at the threshold of three standard deviations from the norm, as statistically designating the 99.9% level.)

Can it be improved? <Shrug> Who knows? What special advantage would there be when it is 'enough already'? Burnout, more probably.

 

[Thermal]

You can suggest some idea.

First, you'd need to explain what your method involves, and present some reason why it should be taken seriously. You have been asked for this REPEATEDLY, and continue to refuse to meaningfully respond.

In your OP, you say people should listen to the radio on headphones and they will be transported to the High IQ realm. That is essentially nothing. You are basically saying it's magic.

 

[JayUtah]

You can suggest some idea.

To flesh out my response a little more, it's your responsibility to support your claim with appropriate evidence. If you want to convince skeptics of your claim, then what would make your evidence convincing is if it were objective, testable, and repeatable. Evidence is objective when it's something everyone can observe for themselves and see the same thing. Evidence is testable when it is susceptible to rigorous methods of observation that preclude error. Evidence is repeatable when rigorous observation under the same circumstances produces the same outcome.

If you want to convince skeptical scientists of your claim, the appropriate evidence is objective, testable, and repeatable according to the scientific method. These methods create a hypothesis framework that can decide a question with deductive strength. They employ well-tested principles of empiricism to concoct the tests to be used. They employ procedural safeguards to prevent confounding influences from intervening. As @Thermal points out, you have not explained your claim in sufficient detail for anyone to create a usable protocol even if they were inclined to do so.

Your claims center on a quantitative change: something that can be measured numerically. You must therefore identify very clearly and exactly what you're measuring and how you're measuring it. You must identify its possible sources of error and describe using actual data and actual mathematics the degree to which it is possible for those errors to affect your measurements. You must produce a statistical model for your measurements that allow an objective determination of the change you claim, irrespective of unavoidable or irreducible error and inherent uncertainty.

All of this is your responsibility to do. You claim to be a scientist, but you can't seem to demonstrate any scientific ability. The mark of a scientist is in the ability to devise and apply these methods to claims, not simply in the imagination of the claim and writing it down. As @W.D.Clinger pointed out weeks ago, you are prolific in your speculation, but completely lacking in any actual science. The further problem is that no one is likely to help you since you are obviously unwilling to have the depth of conversation here that would help you. The only rational response to your apathy is wholesale rejection of your claims.

If you want to be taken seriously you must participate. You can show your good faith by answering simple questions honestly, otherwise you're likely to be stuck with well-deserved mockery.

I like to start with the numbers because they inevitably represent something that's being measured. Where do the numbers in your claim come from? How are they being measured? What are the sources of error and uncertainty in them?

You told us previously that these were just numbers you reckoned on an "imaginary scale." That is obviously unsuitable because it fails all three criteria for appropriate evidence. Can you describe a different scale of measurement for I.Q. in your proposal that would be objective, testable, and repeatable?

 

[JayUtah]

In your OP, you say people should listen to the radio on headphones and they will be transported to the High IQ realm. That is essentially nothing. You are basically saying it's magic.

Listening to "the radio" with or without headphones is quaint. There's plenty of AM radio across the vast expanse of the American heartland that I think would actively make you dumber to listen to. Who listens to "the radio" anymore?

Now yes, scientifically, you could explore some related effects. Does listening to one kind of radio program make the listener more proficient at a knowledge-based task than another kind of program? How does that compare to no radio listening? What about headphones with nothing playing in them (i.e., noise cancelation)?

Obviously we're not measuring I.Q. in that case as is measured in the standard way. But I would wager to say that someone trying to take a standardized I.Q. test with death metal blaring in the headphones at high volume might score slightly lower on the test than someone of equal intelligence taking the test in a quiet room. But obviously you're not changing the person's I.Q., just his ability to effectively perform the test.

From what little we can glean from the OP's errant ramblings, what he thinks is I.Q. is more likely to be some transient mental state that's conducive or not to some desired activity. I certainly feel more adept at reviewing designs when my work environment is free of distractions and annoyances and instead supplied with soothing, relaxing stimulus.

 

[sackett]

Many years ago, I associated for a while with a guy who was quietly vain of his IQ. Not so quietly
that we didn't all learn that it was 180 some odd. Since my mother, a school teacher in the 1920s,
was a survivor of the first wave of Sanford-Binêt, I grew up skeptical about the whole shebang, and
remain so into modern times, although of course there have been improvements.

But I'm afraid I showed my attitude to Ike180 a little too plainly (after a while, dammit I'm not an
aggressive type) and he challenged me: "Whats your IQ, then? Eh?"

How could I resist? I replied in my best bunkhouse lout manner, "Seventy nine!"
Ike was pityingly sardonic. "79? Oh, I see." And smirked.
Bunkhouse: "So? At's purty damn good! Hunnerd's the best ya kin git!"
The room was silent, waiting for Ike to catch on. And waited, as he smiled and preened.
We're waiting still. So's Ike, wherever time has carried him. Because I be damn if I know what
my various scores on IQs have been.

If I had learned of one or two, I sure & hell wouldn't have told my mother. She invented sardonic pity.

 

[Thermal]

Listening to "the radio" with or without headphones is quaint. There's plenty of AM radio across the vast expanse of the American heartland that I think would actively make you dumber to listen to. Who listens to "the radio" anymore?

I had the opportunity recently to listen to central Pensylvania's radio waves when taking a 7 hour drive across the state a few times. It's... concerning... what has taken over the largely abandoned radio waves.

From what little we can glean from the OP's errant ramblings, what he thinks is I.Q. is more likely to be some transient mental state that's conducive or not to some desired activity. I certainly feel more adept at reviewing designs when my work environment is free of distractions and annoyances and instead supplied with soothing, relaxing stimulus.

I wondered if that was the thrust of the OP, that he discovered that meditation, or calmly centering yourself, improves your mental functioning?

 

[JayUtah]

I wondered if that was the thrust of the OP, that he discovered that meditation, or calmly centering yourself, improves your mental functioning?

That seems to be the most plausible proposal. I believe the OP is sincere, but simply lacking in sophistication. It's clear he's not really aware of what I.Q. means, either numerically or psychologically. It may be that he's confusing intelligence (as attempted to be measured with I.Q. tests) with immediate proficiency at a mental task at hand. What he's probably alluding to instead is something that would be more productively measured using something like electroencephalography, which produces a more usable picture of the brain's transient mental state.

 

[Helen]

Being in the flow could perhaps feel like a state of heightened intelligence.

 

[JayUtah]

Being in the flow could perhaps feel like a state of heightened intelligence.

Yes, I find that interpretation intuitively appealing. If you define and self-assess your intelligence as your perceived ability to focus and perform well on an intellectually-demanding task, then certainly techniques that improve focus and performance will show an improvement. Paradoxically that intellectually-demanding task might be taking an I.Q. test, but that's not where I'm going.

I employ a number of so-called "knowledge workers" whose jobs generally require them to spend as much contiguous time as possible "in the zone." By that I mean they're trying to reason through problems that involve lots of details and lots of complicated relationships among abstract concepts. It takes them a long time to get all that problem space in their heads, and when they get interrupted it's all gone in an instant. The studies I read said it takes up to 20 minutes to get back "in the zone." Hence we provide work environments and policies for those employees that support that need.

That's enough evidence for me to look closely at a claim that such things as meditation and relaxation can improve both objective performance on knowledge tasks and the subjective perception of one's own short-term mental ability. I would imagine those two things feed back on themselves. If you feel better about your ability to perform a task, you'll perform it better, and vice versa.

My master's thesis was on the eye-mind-hand effect of various engineering design activities. This really makes more sense than waffling about I.Q. scores.

So what we need to convince our OP of is that "I.Q." and numerical scores in that milieu are the wrong way to think about the effect he's proposing and wants to study. We need to help him get a better idea of what to measure and how. That said, it's hardly a new horizon in science to imagine that there are effective ways to improve one's mental state. In the larger scheme, the OP's proposal will probably be received with a resounding, "Well, duh!"

 

[arthwollipot]

Indeed. Any test of the suggestion, if there is to be a test, has to start with a clear statement of exactly what the claim is.

Is the claim that you can increase the score obtained in an IQ test? Okay, let's test that. Let's start with a baseline IQ test from someone who hasn't done any of the proposed techniques. Have them practice whatever has been suggested for whatever amount of time is being suggested, then have them take another IQ test and compare the results.

Is the claim that meditation and stress reduction can help clear the head and improve mental function? That's harder to define, but let's come up with some baseline measurement of "mental function" and undergo a similar kind of test.

We've seen it many, many times before. People throw out claims, and they have absolutely no idea what it might take to objectively demonstrate that the claim is true.

 

[JayUtah]

In your OP, you say people should listen to the radio on headphones and they will be transported to the High IQ realm. That is essentially nothing. You are basically saying it's magic.

Actually, he explicitly says it's magic. From his longer linked article :—

"I initially increased my IQ by 20 points. Then 50, then 100, and finally I got to 400 IQ points. However, this is not the end, after quite a long time I came to the conclusion that I can raise the level of my intelligence up to 1600 points. For this I used a special method of magically reaching this level." Source, emphasis added.​

And it's worth pointing out that it's not at all clear from his claims that listening to music on headphones is what allegedly achieves the claimed effect. Depending on whether you read the OP in this thread or the longer linked article, it may be that listening to music is how the effect is measured. His claim is that at "higher levels of intelligence" music takes on a different and deeper meaning. He seems to be posturing music appreciation as the metric of higher intelligence, not its cause.

It's still entirely unclear what activity actually causes the purported "higher level of intelligence." From this thread's OP :—

To achieve this, you need to properly prepare yourself and tune yourself to achieve a higher IQ. In the proposed method, your mind is simply transported to a higher IQ level. You can tell yourself you're going to achieve a higher IQ, for example, 180, and you shift to that level.

Similarly from the linked article :—

"To do this, you need to tune in and set yourself up to raise the level of intelligence. The mind shifts to a higher level of intelligence with the right effort. In my method, the mind is moved to the target level of intelligence, e.g. 180 IQ points, or 400 points." Id.​

The "right effort"—the method per se—is not described. You are "simply transported" and you "magically reach[]" that level. But by doing what? Maybe by listening to music, or maybe what you hear in the music is just the sign that you've arrived. But it certainly sounds to me like listening to music is the intellectual task that's supposed to be improved by "magically" raising your I.Q. I can't see where there's a method specified beyond simply imagining that you're now smarter.

That isn't even a hypothesis.

 

[novaphile]

Just to throw some water on this fire, here's a couple of facts to assist.

I've been 'IQ' tested, four times in my life, on each occasion, no 'IQ' score was given.

The first, was in late primary school, and the report included lines like:

"Vocabulary commensurate with a post-graduate student."

Later tests (pre-employment, and during employment) tested against three measures:

Verbal reasoning; symbolic reasoning, numerical reasoning.

The result of each round of tests was described in terms of the matching percentile of the Australian adult population.

My scores were 99th, 99th and 97th. (I'm frankly astonished that I scored that high on numerical.)

On one particular test, there was a comment that the test had failed, because the number of questions answered was part of the scoring process, and it was not considered possible for an applicant to complete that section in the allowed time, and therefore my result was beyond the test's ability to measure. (NB. All of these tests were conducted in a controlled, and supervised environment.)

Scoring in the 99th percentile of the Australian adult population is held to be equivalent to an IQ of 135 - 136.

My recommendations for people who'd like to increase their IQ?

1. Ensure you have adequate nutrition.
2. Ensure that you get some exercise every day. (Half an hour of moderate exercise per day is likely sufficient).
3. Improve your vocabulary by reading every day, read non-fiction, consult a dictionary every time you encounter an unfamiliar word, or a word used in an unfamiliar way. (If you're not encountering words you don't know, that would suggest you need to choose a more difficult subject, or author.)
4. Improve your problem solving abilities by seeking out puzzles, and solving them.


tldr;

Brainy guy, who has been recognised as a brain his entire life, has a tested equivalent IQ of less than 135.
Keep yourself healthy, improve your vocabulary, and exercise your brain.


Be extremely suspicious of claims to raise IQs above 200.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Mi brane hertz.

 

[JayUtah]

Mi brane hertz.

Probably more than 30 Hertz if you really want to get the water boiling.

 

[JayUtah]

My recommendations for people who'd like to increase their IQ?
1-4. ...

5. Go to Altair 4 and get that Krell brain-boost doo-dad. (Management is not responsible for id-monsters.)

 

[Vixen]

Musical ability is associated with mathematical ability so maybe - looking at the world's greatest composers - the idea of a link to IQ comes from there.