Review of Get Smarter in a Week
by Alan Pritt
The show followed a similar format to other Saturday evening programmes such as Test the Nation. Both shows are divided into two hour long segments, and both programmes ask the studio and home audience to answer questions. There was one big difference, however: the 'Studio 100' were also tested a week prior, and spent the week in between tests trying to improve. This is from the press release:
Exactly one week before the show, the volunteers are tested in four key areas of brain function to find out how smart they started. Then, for seven days, they are put through a gruelling and exhilarating brain training regime - all under the expert supervision of the Get Smarter brain coaches - handpicked from the worlds of science, education, and personal development.
BBC Press Office (my emphasis)
In reality the week was not all that gruelling. Several of the participants remarked that it had been quite easy and really enjoyable.
So what did they have to do? Well the show was split into 4 segments: memory (smart store), spatial awareness (smart space), creativity (smart thinking) and words and numbers (smart school). I shall go through each of these in turn.
Memory - Smart Store
The programme began with a whistle-stop explanation of memory, using filing cabinets and clerks as an analogy. The explanation was actually reasonably comprehensive, but probably too fast for anyone to really take in. You can watch it here.It then went into a case study of Jimmy the fireman. Jimmy does naughty things like forgetting his wife's birthday; one time, twice on the same birthday! His other big problem was memorising all the files of information he had to know to climb the ranks in the fire service. Up to now, everything he'd done only required a well trained body; but to get a promotion he would need to train his brain.
Enter Dominic O'Brien. O'Brien is a past memory champion, and he immediately impressed Steven by remembering a pack of cards. He then demonstrated the journey method. This involved him attaching objects to certain rooms in his house. So in the bedroom were oranges, in his daughter's bedroom were cornflakes, and so on for 10 rooms. Being a TV show they didn't really get into depth about each method, but that's fair enough because they kept pointing you to their website. The show is really just to wet your appetite.
Then came the test.
The tests for each section consisted of ten questions. They were actually quite difficult, mainly because of the pressure of time. For example, in one task you had to memorise the names of people at a wedding, and were introduced to about 15 people in 15 seconds.
After the test, they gave the following quick tips for improving:
- Make visual connections between different items of memory
- Use your senses
- Reduce stress
- Eat food of different colours to make sure you have a balanced diet
- Get enough sleep
- Eat and drink healthily
These are sound tips, but obviously don't go into much depth. My view of television shows like this is that they should get people excited enough to look further, and in the case of memory they may just have done enough to do that. If the techniques (especially the journey method) was understood by the audience, I think it will work for them and get them motivated. So not ground breaking for me, but it may have been for some of the audience.
If the audience are interested enough, they can then learn a bit more through the website. This provides further details about the journey method, the peg system, and also gives a few exercises. On top of this there is general advice about such things as exercise and diet; but I'll get to that later. All in all, it is quite basic advice, but certainly worth learning as an introduction. If you practice these techniques extensively it will actually take you a long way. I'm unsure whether enough details are given for participants to actually do some of the tasks (such as memorise a pack of cards) however. A bit more guidance would useful.
Spatial Awareness - Smart Space
Spatial Awareness begins with a quick introduction, stating that men are good with 3D objects and angles, whereas women prefer to use landmarks to navigate. They suggest this may have developed in prehistoric times, but admit that it is still a mystery.As the case study for spatial awareness, they used Lisa. Lisa is a prime candidate because she gets lost going to the toilet!
This segment focused a lot on mental mapping. They were in a shopping mall so Ian Robertson (the smart coach) referenced compass points to stores in the shop. So the popcorn vendor was north, ice cream was south and so on. Whether this is enough to stop her getting lost I'm not sure. She also played miniature golf which was apparently to improve her confidence. Fair enough; confidence does play a significant role in intelligence. However, I think the 'smart coach' just fancied a game of golf to be honest.
The advice for improving was to:
- Play ball games and video games to improve your hand-eye coordination
- Take up yoga to become more bodily aware
- Look at your journey with fresh eyes
- Visualise your journey prior to taking it
- Exercise your body
- Drink more water
The website has a few more interesting ideas. Again, nothing ground breaking, but some interesting exercises such as walking around the house blindfolded, taking a mental journey around your house and a common journey you take. The mental journey would be the most productive, but it's hardly comprehensive and it seems like someone has just made up the tasks on the spot.
An odd addition is the Kim's tray game, where you memorise a tray of objects, then someone takes an object away, and you have to figure out what it is missing. Surely this is a memory exercise, and indeed it did feature in the memory part of the show.
Creativity (smart thinking)
Well they said it was creativity, but they also included problem solving in the test. They overlap of course, but I think they deserve a distinction; and there was certainly no advice about problem solving.For this section they used Lucy (I think her name was Lucy, but it was gone 9pm at this point and with my new schedule I was now tired and losing concentration!). Lucy is the boss of her company, but lacks the innovative touch.
So, to her rescue, came Mark Lithgoe. He began with a lateral puzzle. He wrote on the board '9P SS' and asked her to guess what it could mean. I think Mark must of come up with this on the spot. While my mind headed back to the WWII with the SS, Lucy thought it may be 'Social Services'. Turns out it was meant to be 9 Planets in the Solar System. Broke the ice I suppose, but I can't imagine what good it was supposed to do.
She then went flower arranging and visited a gallery, had a bath and faced her fears by doing karaoke. Again, there is some benefit to these exercises, but the whole thing is a bit wishy washy and I doubt it had an impact on the audience.
Here are the other suggestions:
- Scare yourself and do something you wouldn't normally do
- Break habits, like eating grapes with chopsticks!
- Enjoy being stuck on problems
- Look at things from a different point of view
- Think about what you could do different the next day
- Eat healthily
- Do some knitting
I can hardly believe that they didn't suggest carrying a note book around with you, to jot down ideas. It's one of the simplest and most rewarding suggestions to make, and the results could easily have been shown for the audience. On the website they get close with a dream journal, but don't really give any good advice. A bit of a wasted opportunity.
Still one of the participants improved her creativity by 86% over the week, according to the programme's tests! hmmm.
Words and numbers (smart school)
The final category was good old words and numbers. The case study for this was Steven who was quite good at maths to begin with, but improved over the week as well. Steven works in a pub, and has to tally up his accounts. He's already reasonable at this, but there's room for improvement.Remember he works in a pub, so the obvious first advice was drink less, eat better, sleep more. After a week of doing this, unsurprisingly Steven did a little better on the tests. He also spent the week doing the new craze, Sudoku. I'm a little unsure how much benefit this little puzzle is. Obviously it will help your maths skills, but I'm not sure by how much. I think the time would be better spent on doing some proper mental maths.
Other advice includes:
- Believe you can improve
- Use it (i.e. practice!)
- Be positive
- Watch less TV (yes, this was said on TV) and, play more puzzles and read more
- Learn techniques to make maths tasks easier
On the website I particularly enjoyed the advice to watch and play along with Countdown. Countdown for those in other countries, is a show that includes mental and word based challenges, but it is on a competing channel. I liked that.
Diet
On top of all the specific advice for brain exercises they also recommended to improve diet, exercise and get lots of sleep. While the advice amounts to a few recipes on the website, I'm sure this probably accounted for a large portion of the improvements.Verdict
Another factor that would account for dramatic increases is the tests. With only 10 multiple choice questions on each subject, it isn't hard to make dramatic changes. Something has to be said for the fact that the trend (as far as they made out) was positive. Generally I would say the health improvements accounted for this mostly, and the memory techniques will of helped to a certain degree. There is also the probability that they got better simply because they knew what kind of things to expect on the test.I didn't expect this to be too informative, as it was only a 2 hour programme on a Saturday night; but I still think it is a bit of a wasted opportunity. Many people won't take it seriously, as a lot of the advice seemed to be made up in a 10 minute coffee break.
The programme reflects the 'tips' books of the same genre. Or I could even liken it to fad diets. It's easily consumable advice, that is beneficial, but hardly reflects the quality of the research being made.
But I'm not really complaining. It represents a general public interest in the subject, and perhaps an acceptance that such things can be improved. I just hope the audience realises the subject goes much deeper than a lot of the advice on this show.
Every now and then we get a TV show that is both well researched and entertaining. This was not one of those occassions
