Cognition, Learning, and Self-Tracking - Quantified Self 2011

COGNITION AND LEARNINGMay 29, Quantified Self 2011

Nick Winter

nick@skritter.com

Two Topics Today

Measuring Learning

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Measuring Cognition

Measuring Learning

(measuring our learning speed and how much we remember)

Tracking it

Improving it

Ebbinghaus and Memory

Spaced Repetition

Spaced Repetition Systems (SRS)

Anki, SuperMemo Skritter (my baby)

What Can You SRS?

Obvious

• Vocabulary/Languages

• Science

• School stuff

• Phone numbers

• Names and faces

• Any facts, really

Not obvious

• Self-help/habits

• Music

• How to deal with police

• What organic/free range/grass-fed/certified humane actually mean

• Anything chunkable

What I’m SRSing

• Chinese

• Spanish

• Morse Code

• Braille

• Chess

• Rationality techniques

• Biases and fallacies

• Social skills

• People I meet

• Anatomy

• Account numbers

• Poetry

• Cooking

• Massage

• Investing

• Lots of nonfiction books

Super Simple Self Experiments

Super Simple Self Experiments

Measuring Cognition

(measuring the performance of our brains)

Why?

How?

Brain Performance is Important

+10 IQ = $XXXXX?

2x focus = $XXXXX?

You Can Pump Up Your Brain (probably)

You could try…

Walking, standing, butter, fermented foods, warm showers, smart drugs, meditation, breathing exercises, biofeedback, fish oil, flaxseed oil, MCT oil, yoga, alcohol, yams, coffee, mint tea, creatine, winter swimming, dual n-back, and sleeping a lot!

You Can Pump Up Your Brain (probably)

And you might not want to eat…

Raw carrots, raw bell peppers, peanut butter, walnuts, pure sugar, bananas, raw apples, grains, tofu, onions, mushrooms, lactose, chocolate, nuts, coffee, cheese, or processed foods!

You Can Pump Up Your Brain (probably)

• Tons of ways

• Most won’t work for you

• How to find the right few?

• Just try them and measure the results!

Cool Experiments that Worked

• Seth Roberts:

Butter + Flaxseed Oil + Warm Showers = Faster Arithmetic

• Dave Asprey:

Not Eating Wheat = Way Better at Freecell

• Piotr Wozniak

Free-Running Sleep = Better Memory During SRS

How to Measure Brain Performance?

• Some possible tests:

Psychomotor Vigilance Test, sightreading music,

Continuous Performance Tasks, typing speed tests,

Test of Variables of Attention, Sudoku, crosswords,

arithmetic, solitaire, blitz go, blitz chess, brain training

games, dual n-back, Quake 3, Grid Wars, Tetris,

Minesweeper, or just plain thinking about how sharp you

are at the moment

How to Measure Brain Performance?

• Some possible tests that don’t have a big learning effect:

Psychomotor Vigilance Test, sightreading music,

Continuous Performance Tasks, typing speed tests,

Test of Variables of Attention, Sudoku, crosswords,

arithmetic, solitaire, blitz go, blitz chess, brain training

games, dual n-back, Quake 3, Grid Wars, Tetris,

Minesweeper, or just plain thinking about how sharp you

are at the moment

How to Measure Brain Performance?

• Some possible tests that don’t have a big learning effect

and are reliable:

Psychomotor Vigilance Test, sightreading music,

Continuous Performance Tasks, typing speed tests,

Test of Variables of Attention, Sudoku, crosswords,

arithmetic, solitaire, blitz go, blitz chess, brain training

games, dual n-back, Quake 3, Grid Wars, Tetris,

Minesweeper, or just plain thinking about how sharp you

are at the moment

How to Measure Brain Performance?

• Some possible tests that don’t have a big learning effect,

are reliable, and aren’t designed to bore you:

Psychomotor Vigilance Test, sightreading music,

Continuous Performance Tasks, typing speed tests,

Test of Variables of Attention, Sudoku, crosswords,

arithmetic, solitaire, blitz go, blitz chess, brain training

games, dual n-back, Quake 3, Grid Wars, Tetris,

Minesweeper, or just plain thinking about how sharp you

are at the moment

How to Measure Brain Performance?

• Some possible tests that don’t have a big learning effect,

are reliable, and aren’t designed to bore you:

Psychomotor Vigilance Test, sightreading music,

Continuous Performance Tasks, typing speed tests,

Test of Variables of Attention, Sudoku, crosswords,

arithmetic, solitaire, blitz go, blitz chess, brain training

games, dual n-back, Quake 3, Grid Wars, Tetris,

Minesweeper, or just plain thinking about how sharp you

are at the moment

• Really? Is that the best we can do?

Aha! SRS performance == brain performance!

• Already doing SRS every day

• 100,000 reviews this year

• 18,000 have energy data

• Correlations• Retention rate vs. energy:

• Thinking time vs. energy:

• Total review time vs. energy:

Aha! SRS performance == brain performance!

• Already doing SRS every day

• 100,000 reviews this year

• 18,000 have energy data

• Correlations• Retention rate vs. energy: 0.02

• Thinking time vs. energy: 0.03

• Total review time vs. energy: 0.02

This is a lot harder to measure than I thought

How to Measure Brain Performance?

• Seth Roberts’ arithmetic test

• …?

What about passive measuring?

• Devices that monitor your brain waves?

• Physical indicators correlated to mental function?

• Other biofeedback devices?

• This would be really awesome

Okay, Let’s Talk

• Spaced repetition for the win?

• How would you measure brain performance?

• What are your experiences tracking learning and cognition?

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniakhttp://blog.sethroberts.net/2010/03/27/why-i-use-arithmetic-to-measure-brain-function/http://blog.sethroberts.net/2011/01/29/the-buttermind-experiment/http://blog.sethroberts.net/2010/11/19/effect-of-flaxseed-oil-on-arithmetic/http://lesswrong.com/lw/1gl/how_to_test_your_mental_performance_at_the_moment/http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2562632