Is Cognitive Flexibility training harmful to IQ?

[empleat]

First to clarify: I Am not asking about heavy multi-tasking - where you switch between 5 tasks of different magnitude rapidly! But about Cognitive Flexibility training: particularly type of (task-switching) e.g. Jazz players do this a lot: https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/jazz-classical-musicians-brains/

Lets take as example a game: where you have table split at 2 halfs. On the left - you'll see text and it has name of a color e.g. black, while text itself is colored by a different color! On the right - you have the same thing. Next you have to match text on the left (based on name of a color it says) with an actual color of a text on the right.

Like this: https://lumosity.fandom.com/wiki/Color_Match

Aside: I have brain damage, Lumosity helped me to a point! I want to know, if I should train on Cognitive Flexibility as well! As I try to avoid multi-tasking at all costs - it is a snake-oil! I play like only 5 games per day in average, otherwise it is waste of time I think! I Am acquainted with studies about Lumosity...

Now would something like this be considered as multi-tasking? When you have to answer a question based on different criteria each time? We all do this more, or less, when working on random problems (but in 90% of situations not as often in succession)! So I Am not sure, if you do this rapidly in a row, if this could be harmful to intelligence! It could also be defined as waiting on an input and then deciding what type of thinking to employ, like when Jazz players wait for cues and then decide what to play (they improvise).

Multi-tasking is definitely unhealthy! But maybe even Cognitive Flexibility training may be, as it is like double edged sword, if you over-do it! While it is beneficial to flexible thinking! It was found that learning how to play an instrument and to compose can raise IQ, but I read article about this in general! Not sure if same stands for e.g. Jazz (where you task-switch a lot)! Also IQ tests are comprised to measure Cognitive Flexibility besides other things, so this may not be the best metric to measure IQ/intelligence increase from picking up musical instrument (in this case for Jazz)!

Article cites 9.71% IQ increase from population mean, which isn't that much, but it is decent: https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/learning-musical-instrument-increases-iq-10-percent/ BTW I was also considering about picking-up a musical instrument later, as I read 95% of people have genes for it - it is more about a hard work! I don't care what it is, it has to be most beneficial to intelligence increase (not solely IQ)!

Thank you for answer!

[empleat]

To add: also there is this Philosophical question - wouldn't it be a better use of that time to invest it to learn C++ instead, which I need actually for things?! It is probably near impossible to compare and tell! Even if you play music, or chess, or something which raises IQ the most. Then you are not learning at that time! So it would be more optimal to do something which raises IQ and you learn something useful at the same time!

I Am not sure about C++ and improving cognitive flexibility, although solving real world problems in general improves cognitive flexibility. I Am more interested improving general intelligence. Or types I will need for something like:

• speed reading
• working/long-term memory
• problem-solving, flexibility and what not

I Am great a logic, philosophy, ethics, rational thinking, mainly logical creativity/creativity, strategy! So I Am not sure what I will do yet. Probably like C++, improving classical/QM computers, or AI, which has most priority in my opinion! I Am not sure if I have a mild brain damage, or what, but I used to be very smart, I will see what I will do...

You see, this is problem of decision-making:

Lets say you have 3 options, following are courses of actions:

1) you could choose 1 option randomly and hope it is best the course of an action

2) you could evaluate 1 option exactly what it involves and then choose others if it seemed a bad option (supposed it doesn't have to be compared to others in order to tell)

3) you could continue to do this, or you could evaluate all of them, problem is then you waste too much time, you could already choose 1 and be doing that!

4) we can't even know what our actions will exactly do in the future!

conclusion: everything is just coinflipp afterall...

Some philosopher told me: you mean good, if you consider how your actions affect all people. Problem is this is impossible even for worse AI... Future is unpredictable!!! What if you mean good and cause incredible harm, this happened million times... But we agreed in the end, we should at least try...

Edited October 23, 2021 by empleat