The New IQ: Use Your Working Memory to Think Stronger, Smarter, Faster. Tracy Alloway

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СКАЧАТЬ in how we seek out, weed out, and absorb information. We live in the Google age. In cognitive terms, Google is great. It has considerably reduced the amount of intellectual resources that we previously had to dedicate to rooting out facts before we could do something with them. Because of Google, we no longer need to rely so much on crystallized knowledge—the memorization of facts, dates, or names—associated with IQ and the traditional concept of intelligence. With nothing more than a few clicks, we can pull up just about any information we need. But the key to intelligence today is being able to put those facts together, prioritize the information, and do something constructive with it. And there is one skill that gives you the advantage of managing all this information: working memory. IQ is what you know. Working memory is what you can do with what you know.

      In one of her earliest research projects, Tracy compared students’ grades with their IQ and working memory scores. She found that working memory could predict what grade they would get with far greater accuracy than IQ. In fact, if Tracy knew a child’s working memory, she could determine his or her grades with 95 percent accuracy. In Chapter 5 we will go into much greater detail about this study and other research showing that working memory gives you more of an advantage in the classroom than IQ. Here are just a few of the many fascinating and sometimes surprising findings we will explore in that chapter:

       A good working memory is the best advantage in school and is causally related to grades.

       Kids with good IQ scores don’t necessarily have a good working memory.

       An average or even a high IQ doesn’t necessarily give the student the tools for success in the classroom and beyond.

       IQ is linked to how rich or poor you are, but working memory isn’t, which makes it a great equalizer.

      The research on working memory also shows that the strength of a person’s working memory influences far more than grades. An abundance of new evidence, which we present in this book, shows that the strength of your working memory plays a pivotal role in how successful you will be in many areas of your life, including whether you’ll have the fortitude to work toward your long-term goals, whether you view the glass as half-full or half-empty, and even whether you’ll be able to lay off the junk food when dieting.

      How Working Memory Is Undermined

      Unfortunately, many things in our fast-paced 24/7 society are working against us to weaken our working memory. And when working memory isn’t operating at full speed, it puts us at a big disadvantage.

       Information Overload

      If your working memory isn’t up to snuff, you could drown in the overwhelming flood of data. Todd learned about the impact of information overload the hard way. As a serial entrepreneur, the thirty-five-year-old father of three was no stranger to the frenetic pace of a Silicon Valley high-tech start-up company. He spent every day sitting in front of four computer screens that beeped and pinged and flashed email alerts, instant messages, websites, and Twitter feeds. His clients constantly called his home office, his kids demanded attention, and he was inseparable from his iPhone as he toggled between his home and office life. For more than a year, Todd had been looking for a buyer for his company. But when a large company based on the East Coast emailed Todd saying that they were interested in acquiring his firm, the email got lost in the chaos of his life and he didn’t discover it in his email inbox for over a week. If he hadn’t finally stumbled across it when scanning back through his correspondence one evening at home, he might have lost what turned into a $2-million-dollar sale.

       The Lure of Instant Gratification

      In our I want it now society, we want immediate satisfaction. Our quest for the fleeting thrill we get from an impulsive purchase or from eating an entire bag of chips when we’re on a diet, relegates working memory to the sidelines of the decision-making process. This is why we so often opt for smaller, more immediate rewards rather than waiting for bigger and better things, like a fat bank account, or a slim waistline.

       Time Constraints

      Being squeezed for time burdens working memory and makes you more likely to give in to impulse—whether you’re confronted with a limited-time-offer purchase, for example, or trying to select the correct answers while taking a timed test, or even when faced with an ultimatum from a significant other to get engaged now or break up. In Chapter 2, we look at how this plays out on eBay, where the ticking clock can overwhelm your working memory, making it more likely you will give into impulse and pay more than you should.

       Stress

      When the pressure is on, it can overload your working memory and sabotage your performance at work, at school, or even on the pitch. Think of the angst that every team feels in a penalty shoot-out against Germany. Their reputation for flawless penalties transforms some of the world’s best players into tripping toddlers. Stuart Pearce, Chris Waddle, Gareth Southgate—all these England players stepped up to take penalties in shoot-outs against Germany—and stress caused them to miss. Goodbye, glory.

       Retirement

      Sorry to burst your bubble, but if you’ve been dreaming about the day you can say good-bye to the 9-to-5 grind and hello to retirement, we have to inform you that retirement makes you dumb. Retirement marks not just a reduction of work, but also a reduction in thinking and, consequently, a reduction in your working memory strength.

       Pain

      If you’ve ever slammed your hand in the car door or spilled boiling water on your lap, you know that it’s tough to think clearly when you’re in pain. Scientists have discovered that pain, including chronic aches like a sore back or knee, may disrupt working memory.

       Romance

      What does romance have to do with working memory? In a 2012 study, Jeffrey Cooper and colleagues at Trinity College Dublin discovered that the PFC plays a big role in the first flush of attraction. They scanned the brains of nineteen- to thirty-one-year-olds on the prowl and showed them photos of potential mates. Some photos caused a burst of activity in parts of their PFC. Participants then went to a speed-dating event, and the researchers discovered that the stronger the activation in the PFC, the more likely the participants were to pursue a second date. If you find your working memory working overtime when you first meet someone, there is a good chance that you’ll take a chance and ask them out.

      Some exciting new research by Johan Karremans at Rodboud University in the Netherlands offers insight into why men often become tongue-tied when meeting a woman whom they find attractive. He found that men’s scores on a working memory test were lower after they’d had a brief conversation with a beautiful woman. And intriguingly, he did not find this “attraction effect” in women after they’d had a conversation with a handsome man. His interpretation of his results is that because traditional gender roles require men to take the initiative in engaging in conversation with a potential mate, their working memories are more taxed by the process.

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