Comments on: tDCS: a potential mass-market cognitive enhancer?

By: James B. Shearer

James B. Shearer — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 01:44:26 +0000

We already know how to make people temporarily smarter, amphetamines (and other stimulants) have this effect.

By: fishbane

fishbane — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 17:44:32 +0000

I must agree with wcw. I’m one of those perverts who enjoy taking tests – I treat them as puzzles. For non-essay tests, I can usually get a passing grade for any topic, no matter how little I know about the actual topic being tested.

By: wcw

wcw — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:04:27 +0000

Hooey. All timed, multiple-choice tests measure two main things above all else: raw quickness and general test-taking skills. The ‘acquired knowledge’ is essentially ancillary except for the few candidates who just don’t know anything at all.
As someone blessed with the requisite pair of aptitudes, I have long observed friends and colleagues score worse than I, often much worse, despite similar or greater levels of ‘acquired knowledge’. That is precisely the candidate pool for this or similar cognitive enhancements before tests like the MCAT.

By: Mike Kelley

Mike Kelley — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:58:23 +0000

Maybe they are “perfecting” the technique on the pResident, GWBush — this could explain the voices he claims to hear — a few more volts, Karl — all those years of coke and booze have built up a strong natural immunity to neuron flow…

By: Nancy

Nancy — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 12:46:28 +0000

What does Broca’s area have to do with performance on the MCAT? It is a speech center. You might want to stimulate frontal lobes or memory association areas, but those are all over the brain. Here’s the problem — if we don’t know which areas to stimulate, what good is the technique? Did anyone do a placebo control on this? You might be able to put a rubber band around someone’s head and get the same effect.
The MCAT depends on acquired knowledge, not smarts. You can make someone smarter but if they are ignorant they still won’t do well on that test. The same goes with life. Until there is a way to pour knowledge into someone’s brain wholesale, what good is slightly faster neural processing (or whatever aptitude consists of)?

By: Winston Smith

Winston Smith — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 11:58:40 +0000

Finally, a cure for the heartbreak of stupidity. I’m buyin’ one tomorrow. You guys just keep on ponderin’.
Um…wait…

By: chippy

chippy — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 11:35:59 +0000

What’s scary is how unprepared our regulatory mechanisms seem to be to deal with the tricky set of questions involved.
Isn’t it better to first see where the problems arise and then regulate?
It seems unlikely that we would be able to predict in advance exactly which potential problems will come to pass and the relative effect size of each.

By: Pierce Presley

Pierce Presley — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 07:29:32 +0000

Mr. Scudder obviously hasn’t learned the lesson from baseball’s steroids scandal: even if it means letting another man inject something into one’s buttocks (keep in mind, sports can be a very homophobic environment), some people will do anything to get ahead. Now if it permanently attached a propeller to the top of the cranium, you might have something; lasting shame usually works better than transient embarrassment.

By: Tom Scudder

Tom Scudder — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 06:32:03 +0000

The obvious way of discouraging it would be to require that every such device come with a propeller attached to the top.