heuristic said:
These were well-rested students without a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD? Would you happen to have a link to the study, or maybe a couple of names associated with it off the top of your head? It's cool if you don't. I'd just be curious to read it.
Unfortunately, it's something I encountered in a secondary source in psychology training as an undergrad. I would think that the sample would either be a random cross-section of psychology undergraduates participating in the experiment for class credit and paid subjects in the area of the university where the study was conducted, the sample thus including a rate of ADD similar to that of the general population, OR the study would have excluded all people diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder and those taking psychoactive medications.
I doubt that they could have effectively controlled for level of rest.
The material I've read looking at the cognitive enhancement effects of various stimulants and modafinil looked to tests such as digit span tests, and so forth, and for normal volunteers showed some improvement, largely the same among the stimulants tested, but nothing that I would think would equate to an eight point jump in IQ. But this isn't something I'm anywhere close to being expert on.
Actually, it sounds like your data is a bit stronger, as we don't really know which portions of the IQ test are subject to enhancement from administration of dexedrine. Hell, it could just be that dexedrine keeps people's minds from wandering, which becomes key in timed tests.
Red said:
While I'll leave the door open to the theory that IQs for adults are static numbers
I'll close that door: this notion is substantiated almost entirely by presupposition alone.
Even if genetics alone determined IQ, we would expect a steady decline in IQ from age 17-18 onward (as this is the age when 'fluid intelligence' 'peaks').
supplementing one's life with reading, doing puzzles, learning about cryptography, playing strategy games, etc is the healthier way to gain IQ points. Why? Because it will give you an increase that does now "wear off" in a few hours' time. The analogy to this through amphetamines or other stimulants would be a truly horrific drug addiction.
Indeed. I think that stimulants yield mainly the perception of increased insight. In my experience, stimulants tend to help with rote tasks a great deal before one accrues any tolerance, as I tend to neglect such tasks. With the development of even mild tolerance, though, this effect falls aside, as I 'find' that I have 'more important' shit to do, which turns out to be writing semi-creatively or talking shit on the internet, pretty much like when I'm sober.
ebola
