Starcraft improves your mind & memory improvement

Another one of those coincidental things happened.  Although I stopped playing Starcraft 2, I kept on watching it, and, having caught up on all the matches in the Korean leagues I follow, I searched for some other Starcraft 2 stuff and just so happened to find this article, titled: playing Starcraft can increase your cognitive abilities.

"Importantly, the results of the study suggest that cognitive flexibility can be improved through training, which Glass admits is a controversial theory.  He says that more research will be needed to replicate the results."

I saw that and said, "What?  Isn't that like some bold point I made recently about what I've always believed?"  And... controversial??  I just can't see it as controversial.  I just can't.  Name any area, any subject, any skill, and you can find people who have made significant improvements in that area or subject or skill.  I see no reason why it should be impossible to improve in cognitive flexibility, or in memory, mental agility, logical thinking, creativity, and so on, for that matter.  Now, I'd love to hear any argument for fixed mental ability, because as much as I try to argue the opposite viewpoint against myself, I see neither benefits nor significant evidence for it in this case.  At least in memory, I've seen my own mind make significant improvements.  While there are many things that make me think my memory has improved greatly, I found one old memory game which shows the improvement to be more than just something I'm imagining.



This is a memory game I created.  I'm not entirely sure when I made it, but it was probably when I was in my last year of high school.  The game works as follows: you enter a difficulty from 1 to 9, and this is how many digits will be in each number.  Then, at each level, you memorize a new number and then repeat all the numbers from the previous levels (starting from 1 and going in order).  This is one of those games that I believe will cause most people to work their mind when attempting it the first few times.  It's tough because while you're memorizing a new number, you have to keep all of the previous numbers memorized as well.  Even after you get used to the flow, it's still a challenge to recall the most recent number in the sequence, because the amount of numbers you must go through before repeating it increases.  For example, after memorizing the 3rd number, you repeat 1 and 2, then memorize a 4th, and then repeat 1 and 2 and then 3.  Now, after memorizing, say, the 10th number, you repeat 1 through 9, memorize an 11th number, and then repeat 1 through 9 again, with no chance to test your memory of the 10th number until after entering the 11th once and the first 9 numbers twice.

The numbers used in the records for level reached work as follows: the first number is your overall level, and the second is how far you went in the level, going from 0 (didn't correctly enter the number to be memorized on the level) to the level minus 1.  So if you reach level 10 (9), then you memorized a 10th number, successfully recalled the first 8, and made a mistake on the 9th.

Now for the story of my improvement.  When I made the game, it was certainly a challenge.  I could feel my mind working when I played it, and so I kept playing it.  I started to get the hang of it, and then I had a breakout run on 2 digit numbers, going all the way to level 16.  At the time that improvement was impressive to me; I couldn't understand how I was doing it, but I was doing it.  And then I found I could do it on 3 digit numbers, and do it pretty well on 4 digit numbers, but my performance dropped going to 5 and 6 and up.  I played 9 a lot because it was the game's hardest setting, but at that time, it was hard for me to memorize the 9 digit number fast enough to get anywhere.  I wanted to get to 3 (2).  Eventually I got a 9 digit number that had some easy patterns (lots of repeating digits, something like that), and I correctly typed in the level 2 and level 3 numbers while repeating the easy first number and got to 3 (2).  That was the record I left off with, and so the overall records looked something like this:
1 - 16(0)
2 - 16(3)
3 - 16(0)
4 - 13(5)
5 - 10(9)?
6 - 7(6)?
7 - 5(4)?
8 - 3(2)
9 - 3(2)
I didn't actually memorize the records (although I know 1-4 and 8 and 9 are correct).  I might be overestimating 5, 6, and 7, and I think they were actually 7(6), 5(4), and 4(3).

I didn't play the game much after that time when I made it, years ago.  I might have pulled it out once or twice sitting in the library with my calculator on me, but regardless, those were the records when I pulled it out again just recently.  The first thing to note is that it took no time to get used to the game again.  I knew how the game worked, and my brain remembered how to memorize numbers in that manner.  Then, I was doing better.  You can see the records in the video:

1 - 16(0)
2 - 16(3)
3 - 16(0)
4 - 14(13)+
5 - 10(9)+?
6 - 10(9)+
7 - 6(5)+
8 - 5(2)+
9 - 5(4)+
[New level 10 - 8(0)]
I didn't play levels 1-3 because it seemed pointless (if level 4 wasn't even hard, why do level 3?).  The most surprising thing to me was that level 9 wasn't that hard anymore.  I can just memorize those 9 digit numbers in 2 seconds apparently.  Also, these don't feel anywhere near the best I can do.  For example, the 5(2) on level 8: when I miss on a number that isn't the last number, it's more often due to carelessness, because I do remember the number, having repeated it before.  [And, saying, "Well if it's that easy..." I improved my record on level 9 to 6(5) after 3 tries.  I see why it's tough to play the game repeatedly: so much memorizing and then forgetting.  This must be how karuta players feel...]  This is in contrast to when I made the game and it was a real stretch to even reach 3(2) on level 9.

The improvement can't be explained by my state of mind, as I was pretty tired and having trouble focusing when I was setting the new records recently (unless I memorize better when I'm tired, which I don't think is true).  It's not from practice on the game either.  My memory simply seems to be stronger in general.  I could feel it happening in my classes, and in the games I played (this is one of those things that makes me wonder, "Is this a result of my improvement in memory, or was I always able to do this without much trouble?").  The thing is, it feels like more than my memory has been improving.  What I can understand and learn, what my mind is capable of... it feels like all of that has been constantly improving.

You might say that I just have a strange mind that's capable of improvement, and, like I said before, it's fine by me if you take that stance, but it doesn't make sense to me.  To me, it doesn't seem like the most likely explanation, and it doesn't seem like the most beneficial explanation either.  The stance that I take, and will continue to take barring strong evidence to the contrary, is that you can improve the functioning of your own mind.  You can.  You can.  And I'm saying that to the arbitrary you out there whom I have no idea about.  I believe that you, the you that I don't even know, are capable of improving the functioning of your mind.  To tie it back to the article in the beginning, I don't think it's Starcraft specifically that improves your mind.  I think that as long as you are doing something that challenges your mind, you will be improving it.  So, I would recommend that you don't just go on mindlessly solving those sudoku puzzles.  If sudoku is new to you, or if you are still finding new ways of solving the puzzles, then I expect that you are still working your mind.  However, if you're solving them in the same way over and over then it's probably not much of a mental workout.  I believe this holds true for most everything.