During the early 1990s, a paper was published in Nature revealing that students performed better on an intelligence test if they listened to Mozart while taking it. So was born the billion-dollar brain-training industry. Sadly, other researchers have been unable to replicate the 鈥淢ozart effect鈥�. Studies of computer games that claim to improve mental performance have produced mixed results too. 鈥淏rain training, Baby Einstein, and so on have been fairly disappointing in terms of being able to boost IQ,鈥� says Stuart Ritchie at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
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However, one intervention has repeatedly been shown to work: education. True, intelligent children often remain in school for longer, but that can鈥檛 be the whole story. During the 1960s, the Norwegian government added two extra years of compulsory education to its curriculum and rolled out the change gradually, allowing comparisons between different regions. When researchers investigated IQ scores from tests taken by all Norwegian men as part of their compulsory military service, they concluded that the additional schooling added 3.7 IQ points per year.
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This pattern has been seen elsewhere. In a recent meta-analysis, Ritchie and a colleague concluded that each additional year of schooling . 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not to say that if we left people in school forever they would all become super-geniuses; it must plateau out at some point,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut given the variance in schooling we have now, education does provide some degree of boost.鈥� It might simply be that reading, studying arithmetic and accruing general knowledge are good training for the kind of abstract thinking you need to perform well in IQ tests. Schooling may also teach children to maintain their concentration. Or it could be doing something else.
Whether adult education has a similar effect is less clear. 鈥淚t is plausible,鈥� says Ritchie, although it hasn鈥檛 been tested directly. But not all learning is in the classroom. One study, which compared people鈥檚 IQ scores at the ages of 11 and 70 found that being in 鈥� even after controlling for how smart a person was to begin with. This group still had some age-related decline, but it was less pronounced than in other people. 鈥淭hat is evidence consistent with the 鈥榰se it or lose it鈥� hypothesis,鈥� says Richie.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淐an I become cleverer?鈥�
