EF Science

Whether you’re answering hard questions, making impromptu remarks, analyzing a situation, or synthesizing a bunch of data points into a cohesive and convincing presentation, the ability to think and process multiple pieces of information quickly and effectively is a vital skill to have. In our fast-paced and fluid world, you’ve got to be able to pull out the right piece of knowledge at the right time.

Psychology of Individual Differences: Intelligence and Personality in Action. Chapter 2: The Nature of Intelligence

This chapter showsthat intelligence, defined as “a very general mental capability that involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience” (Gottfredson, 1997) is at the centerof the cosmos composed by a range of psychological factors(Figure 1).Figure 1. The Psychological Cosmos.

Nevertheless, finding the most likely‘structure’ of human personality (including intelligence) based on behavioural differencesmeasured by standardized tests,is just the first stepof a long and fascinating voyage.The identified elements,or factors,that define the ‘structure’ of human personality follow a given ‘dynamic’ and they may be rooted in human‘biology’.

He suggests eSports athlete should be following diets similar to those in professional sports, as well as performing regular physical training to support better motor-skills. His thought is that this may extend career time by 5 years or more. “My advice is that gaming is more than just playing video games. It is a complex interaction of many different, mostly cognitive, skills. To improve these skills and guarantee sustainable results, a holistic approach is needed.” In fact now some of the biggest eSports teams are turning to sports science to raise their game, including using NeuroTracker to sharpen their minds. This means that in coming years we’re likely to see cyber athletes pushing the boundaries of human performance.

A landmark NeuroTracker study published Nature Scientific Reports showed that elite athletes have brains with superior capacities for learning, which could be a critical factor as to why they can achieve such high levels of performance on the sports field. Professor Faubert, the inventor of NeuroTracker explained the meaning of this for world-class athletes, “The fact that they are there…is because they are more plastic.  I think that’s one of the criteria.  You would think that this brain is optimal at the highest competitive level, that it’s reached its maximum potential.  But maybe they are there because they can acquire new potential so much more rapidly and so more efficiently.” Neuroplasticity is also known to be a key factor in brain health, with reduced plasticity being a related factor for increased risks of cognitive conditions such as dementia in older populations.

The NeuroTracker score itself is established in the neuroscience literature as a high-level measure of attentional capacity.  This means that the higher your score is, the better your attention.  It’s a high-level measure because performing NeuroTracker requires using and integrating several different types of attention.

Distributed or Divided Attention – similar to multi-tasking, tracking several targets at the same time requires allocating attentional resources separately to each individual target.

While cross‐sectional studies have shown neural changes in long‐term meditators, they might be confounded by self‐selection and potential baseline differences between meditators and non meditators. Prospective longitudinal studies of the effects of meditation in naïve subjects are more conclusive with respect to causal inferences, but related evidence is so far limited.

Compared with 30 control subjects, the participants to meditation training showed increased gray matter density and changes in the coherence of intrinsic brain activity in two adjacent regions of the right inferior frontal gyrus encompassing the anterior component of the executive control network. Both these measures correlated with self‐reported well‐being scores in the meditation group.

The significant impact of a brief meditation training on brain regions associated with attention, self‐control, and self‐awareness may reflect the engagement of cognitive control skills in searching for a state of mental silence, a distinctive feature of Sahaja Yoga meditation. The manifold implications of these findings involve both managerial and rehabilitative settings concerned with well‐being and emotional state in normal and pathological conditions.

The Self Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ) was found to be a valid and reliable tool which measures unique psychosomatic abilities. Self regulation deals with competence and autonomy and can be regarded as a problem solving capacity in terms of an active adaptation to stressful situations to restore wellbeing. The tool is an interesting option to be used particularly in complementary medicine research with a focus on behavioural modification.

Despite the large number of childhood and adolescent obesity treatment trials, we were only able to partially assess the impact of obesity treatment interventions on school achievement and cognitive abilities. School and community‐based physical activity interventions as part of an obesity prevention or treatment programme can benefit executive functions of children with obesity or overweight specifically. Similarly, school‐based dietary interventions may benefit general school achievement in children with obesity. These findings might assist health and education practitioners to make decisions related to promoting physical activity and healthy eating in schools. Future obesity treatment and prevention studies in clinical, school and community settings should consider assessing academic and cognitive as well as physical outcomes.

This review provides low‐quality evidence for the use of technology‐based interventions in the rehabilitation of executive functions and memory for children and adolescents with TBI. As all of the included studies contained relatively small numbers of participants (12 to 120), our findings should be interpreted with caution. The involvement of a clinician or therapist, rather than use of the technology, may have led to the success of these interventions. Future research should seek to replicate these findings with larger samples, in other regions, using ecologically valid outcome measures, and reduced clinician involvement.

At present, the field of e‐health interventions for the treatment of anxiety or depression in children and adolescents with long‐term physical conditions is limited to five low quality trials. The very low‐quality of the evidence means the effects of e‐health interventions are uncertain at this time, especially in children aged under 10 years.

Although it is too early to recommend e‐health interventions for this clinical population, given their growing number, and the global improvement in access to technology, there appears to be room for the development and evaluation of acceptable and effective technologically‐based treatments to suit children and adolescents with long‐term physical conditions.

The results highlight the influence of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in cognitive functioning. However, the marked interest facing toward a specific domain, i.e., the executive functions, and the relatively small number of the studies on this topic do not allow understanding better this relationship. Despite these limits, HRV could be considered a promising early biomarker of cognitive impairment in populations without dementia or stroke. This index should be evaluated within a preventative perspective to minimize the risk of developing cognitive impairment.

The results highlight the influence of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in cognitive functioning. However, the marked interest facing toward a specific domain, i.e., the executive functions, and the relatively small number of the studies on this topic do not allow understanding better this relationship. Despite these limits, HRV could be considered a promising early biomarker of cognitive impairment in populations without dementia or stroke. This index should be evaluated within a preventative perspective to minimize the risk of developing cognitive impairment.