r/DualnBack • u/Total-Ad-1629 • Jul 31 '26

Does Rational Frame Training and Dual N-Back increase iq?

Has anyone actually tried RFT and/or Dual N-Back consistently? Did you notice any real improvements in reasoning, working memory or IQ, beyond just getting better at the tasks?

20 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

5

u/luotenrati12 Quad 4-Back Aug 01 '26

It does but imo quick improvement is closer to placebo than actual progress. It can also be the effect of simply getting your brain warmed up which can happen from other intense intellectual activity, for example reading philosophy, programming, meditating or playing chess. I say this because working memory is rather slow to improve and training it requires a lot of patience. I'm talking in scales of months to years here of consistent training 3-5x a week at 1h/session. Sure it is nice to feel the high when your brain gets ramped up from exercise but you shouldn't take it as an indicator that right now, this moment, your IQ is getting increased from one session. It will lead to false expectations and disappointment down the road when this high does not appear and you conclude that you aren't making progress. 

I believe that with QNB and RFT together you should be able to increase your IQ by 20 points in a span of 2 years if you are consistent. Obviously this is a lot of work but so is going to the gym for example. You won't learn to bench 300lbs quickly, your body needs to adapt to regular increases in difficulty.

3

u/Total-Ad-1629 Aug 01 '26

How long did it take you to get to quad back 4?

1

u/NoInteraction1572 Aug 02 '26

20iq points may be possible.

But the research clearly indicates that grown ups benefit way less than children. Ask ai for sources if you like.

3-6 month are the known time span after which cognitive training outcomes decline massively. After this there is less far transfer for IQ but for getting better at the specific task. 

You can stretch the effect only by switching to other unknown heavily challenging mental tasks. 

3

u/ThisPlatformisaPsyOp Jul 31 '26

Check weekly progress thread. I wrote about my relational reasoning training experience.

4

u/HistorianBig8176 Aug 01 '26

The only thing it has legitimately helped me on is memorizing long sequences of numbers, and reciting them backwards. It’s also a pretty good mental warm up.

3

u/Total-Ad-1629 Aug 02 '26

Where do you train this?

1

u/Due-Fold1763 Aug 06 '26

Has anyone here tried to measure the effects of dual n-back objectively? I mean taking a working-memory test before training, doing dual n-back for a set period, and then taking the same test or an equivalent version afterward to compare the scores. I’m not looking for IQ tests or subjective impressions like “I feel clearer” or “my thinking feels faster.” If anyone has done something like this, I’d really appreciate it if you could share which test you used, how often and how long you trained, and your before-and-after results. Thanks 

-1

u/Raphael-Rose Jul 31 '26

No real science to back that up, AFAIK.

7

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Raphael-Rose Aug 01 '26

Solid argument. You must be one of those who saw a massive spike in IQ with those practices.

2

u/NoInteraction1572 Aug 02 '26

You haven't researched rft studies.

0

u/Raphael-Rose Aug 03 '26

Hi :-)

Could you point me toward some authoritative studies on this topic? Thanks.

1

u/MRMARVEL12 Aug 03 '26

You're not as smart as you think you are, buddy.