Dual N-back: Take 1

Alright, today I've done my first ever attempt at the Dual N-back test.  For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a form of brain training.  The screen simultaneously flashes a box at a position, and says a sound; what you have to do is select whether or not the one currently being done is at the same position and/or says the same sound, as the one N times ago.  As you can probably guess, N increases as you get better at this.

Anyway, I enjoy brain training, and I'm pretty good at it:  I play such games as Brain Age and Big Brain Academy all the time (my BA is consistently around 20, btw).  However, Dual N-back is supposed to be the real deal; more difficult and more effective than the Nintendo DS games you find nowadays.  With that in mind, I decided to start a regimen with DNB.

How'd I do my first day?  As expected, pretty mildly.  I did it ten times, starting with Dual 2-back.  After a few attempts at this, I got a high enough score to bump up to Dual 3-back, at which point I sucked.  Here are the results:

Trial|N|Score

1     2  78%
2     2  70%
3     2  71%
4     2  83%
5     3  60%
6     3  16%
7     3  63%
8     3  27%
9     3  51%
10   3  37%

All in all, that was pretty fun.  I hope to continue this for quite a while.

~Ian

Hello, world!

It's a sentiment I can express in at least ten languages:

B:

 main()

 {
   extrn a, b, c;
   putchar(a); putchar(b); putchar(c); putchar('!*n');
 }
 a 'Hell';
 b 'o, w';
 c 'orld';

C:

 #include <stdio.h>

 int main()
 {
        printf("Hello, world!\n"); 

        return 0;
 }

C++:

 #include <iostream> 

 int main()

 {

        std::cout << "Hello, world!\n";

        return 0;

 }

Python:

print("Hello, world!") 

BASIC:

PRINT "Hello, world!"

Visual Basic:

 MsgBox "Hello, world!"

TI-BASIC:

 Disp "Hello, world!"          (on a TI-89, of course)

Perl:

 print "Hello World.";

Mathematica:

 Print["Hello, world!"]

MATLAB:

 disp('Hello, world!')

Brainfuck:

 
 ++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<++++

 +++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>.

Okay, that last one I copy-pasted.  But you get the idea.

The purpose of this blog is to post stuff that I'm thinking about, and to

serve as a repository for experiments of several types, from grinding to

DIYbio to brain training.  Hope you enjoy it ;-)

~Ian