A highly accessible report on cutting-edge science with practical tips for readers bent on boosting their own intelligence.
A journalist’s account of the young science of brain training.
“Are smart phones the only thing we can make smarter?” asks Hurley in this debut, an expansion of a 2012 article in the New York Times Magazine. In fact, he reports, more than 60 studies show that cognitive training substantially improves the intellectual abilities of humans. The first such evidence was presented in 2008 by Swiss researchers Susanne Jaeggi and Martin Buschkuehl, who found college students who played a computerized game called the N-back for 20 minutes per day, five days per week for four weeks improved their fluid intelligence—the underlying ability to learn—by 40 percent. Despite lopsided evidence in favor of training effectiveness, many scientists continue to dispute whether the gains are real. In this conversational book, Hurley examines the research, describes heated debates at major science meetings, and chronicles his use of what he considers the most credible cognitive interventions to see whether he can improve his own intelligence. He explores several commercially available programs with “plausible claims of effectiveness”: Cogmed, whose computerized training helps individuals with ADHD; Lumosity, whose games are used to treat cognitive issues in patients with cancer and other diseases; Posit Science, which trains people with Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury; and LearningRX, which uses playing cards and other materials. Hurley notes that violent video games—much used in the military—also improve a person’s speed, accuracy and visual attention. From these and other known cognition enhancers, he creates a personal program of grow-smarter activities and treatments, including N-back, Lumosity, physical exercise, learning a musical instrument and wearing a nicotine patch. After three and a half months of training, for two to three hours daily, tests show his fluid intelligence increased by 16 percent.
A highly accessible report on cutting-edge science with practical tips for readers bent on boosting their own intelligence.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59463-127-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Hudson Street/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
