On Tuesday, Sept. 30, Bowers Writers House hosted Dr. Oshin Vartanian, a neuroscientist at Defense Research and Development Canada. Vartanian visited campus for two days in order to give presentations on “The Prospects and Perils of Cognitive Training for Improving Cognition.”
The purpose of these presentations is to provide concrete proof that one’s intelligence quotient, or IQ, is more variable than most people seem to believe.
Vartanian began his presentation on Tuesday by identifying the two core components of IQ — the crystallized and fluid components. The crystallized component refers to a part of the IQ that travels on a steady upward trend throughout life. The liquid, however, “peaks in the early to mid 20s and drops in the 30s,” Vartanian said in his presentation. The older audience members weren’t pleased to hear that.
Vartanian used most of the presentation to administer IQ tests on the audience members. This practice is a normal part of his day at Defense Research and Development Canada (DRDC) in Toronto. “If you’ve ever been to our lab, before we even say hello, we give you an IQ test,” Vartanian said.
The test given on Tuesday consisted of four sections, each analyzing a different brain function. The first tested the brain’s creativity function. In this section, students were timed as they synthesized a list of items from a provided topic, and then were tested on word association. The second and third sections tested span of attention and special locations. Students were asked to memorize lists of words and the locations of boxes projected on a screen, then write down the sequence after it had finished playing. The fourth section, the hardest by far, tested special cognition through a series of pattern recognition and tile placement exercises.
At the DRDC, Vartanian specializes on improving the intelligence of Canadian soldiers. The study of how brain damage impairs thinking and cognitive function is what first piqued his interest in neurological sciences, and that is exactly what he is studying. However, not only is he studying the effects, but he is attempting — and succeeding — in helping to reverse the damage.
His studies have shown that through carrying out repeated tasks, one can boost their liquid IQ. By repeating specific cognitive tasks for 25 minutes daily, one can improve their ability to solve new problems, even without prior knowledge on the subject. His protocol for assisting soldiers in IQ recovery follows the scientific findings of Susanne Jaeggi, who published a report on the short and long-term effects of cognitive training.
Toward the end of his presentation, Vartanian showed the audience an example of the specific type of cognitive training that Jaeggi found the most useful. It involved the use of a two-back and three-back memory test in which the subject must remember a series of letters and press a button if the letter shown matches a certain criteria involving the use of spacial cognition and letter memory. While the results of the test were not documented for this protocol, it was easy to tell that the audience members were out of their comfort zone. After just a few minutes, it was easy for audience members to tell how the rigorous 25-minute brain workout just might do the trick.
When Vartanian is not working at the DRDC lab, he can be found teaching a “small” class of 168 students at the University of Toronto. In coming to Elizabethtown College, he was pleased to find that the classes he attended had no more than 30 students. He found his stay at the Bowers Writers House to be a nice change of pace. As a graduate of both the University of British Columbia and University of Maine, he was a stranger to smaller schools like Etown.
It’s been a pleasure hosting Vartanian on our campus, and hopefully he has inspired some of us to “train our brains.” After all, isn’t that what college is supposed to do?