How the Dark Knight, cartoons and video games make you smarter and what this has to do with the Flynn effect
Today we’re revisiting the Dark Knight. This time we’ll move in a different context, letting the Dark Knight inspire us into a conversation about the relation between cartoons, intelligence, and the IQ gap between generations called the Flynn Effect. So let’s start right away!
Psychablog: A Cohort Effect to The Dark Knight Experience?.
I stumbled upon this article some time ago. It was posted on Psychablog, a blog ran by clinical psychologist Robin S. Rosenberg, Ph.D. I really like this blog for one particular reason. The writer is really fond of superheroes and has done a great work towards explaining the psychology of this culture. He has even written a book on the subject The Psychology of Superheroes: An Unauthorized Exploration (Psychology of Popular Culture series). Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to read it yet, so I can’t rate it. Finally, Dr Rosenberg has also starred in the 60 minute show on the History Channel that talked about the psychology of the Dark Knight. Generally, if you like superheroes and you are a psychologist, you’d better be visiting his blog a little too often, since he generally adds a lot of good stuff on the matter 
.
The article describes how Dr Robin was confused during the watch of the Dark Knight. To cite his exact words:
There were times when I wished that I could press a pause button so that I could fully digest a scene before moving on to the next one. It was frustrating. I felt as if I was on a treadmill that would sometimes shift into a faster pace than I was prepared for, and it was all I could do to keep up and not fall off. In the last third of the film, rather than feeling energized, the pace left me fatigued. The younger people that I know who saw the movie did not feel this way, and they seemed to understand most everything that happened. And they didn’t feel tired during the film, only afterward, when the adrenaline rush stopped.
Dr Rosenberg failed to catch up to the fast pace of the batpod
Then, Dr Rosenberg made a connection to the cohort effect
And, he went on to make the connection with the Flynn Effect. The Flynn Effect is named after James R. Flynn. It is a term used to describe the raising of the IQ scores of the newer generations. To explain this I’ll use an example. Let’s say that you are a 20 year old male or female. If you consider that you represent the average person, then your IQ is 100. However, towards your parents, which are a generation older, your IQ is considered to be 120. Towards your grandparents your IQ is considered to be 140, rendering you near-genius.
How you may look to your grandparents
So, this one might explain to you why it is so difficult for older generations to grab concepts such as the internet. Take John McCain for example who not only admits not knowing how to use the internet, he is even proud of that. Take these two links to deep digger into the illiteracy of the republican candidate (note: the fact that I am bashing McCain doesn’t mean that I support the democrats or Obama. This, in order to avoid misunderstandings).
Capital Commentary: McCain and the Internet: Why It Matters
Anyway, going back to our subject which is the Flynn Effect. Now, don’t accept what I told you above without a healthy dose of criticism. First of all, there is a debate concerning what IQ really is, and what IQ tests really measure. There is an old saying among psychologists that IQ is that which IQ tests measure. In general, IQ tests, as Flynn proposed, "do not measure intelligence well but only a minor sort of "abstract problem-solving ability" with little practical significance" (taken from wikipedia Flynn effect). That is, IQ is something like school intelligence, where you have to solve abstract problems that don’t have anything to do with real life. We will not analyse IQ further (this will be done in future posts), since it would take too many pages to do so, but we had to do this minor analysis, in order for those of you who don’t know psychology to understand the whole concept.
Now, concerning the Flynn Effect, there have been many explanations. One such theory, is that the world is getting more complex, especially its visual part (Rising Scores on Intelligence Tests - American Scientist). Reading of the words of Dr Rosenberg I cited above I couldn’t stop thinking of these two videos I had seen some time ago. They are intros from 80s and 90s cartoons. I post them here to watch them for yourself. Since they are, 30 minutes long each, you don’t have to watch the whole thing to understand the concept I am presenting here, just a couple of minutes (unless of course you are a geek like me and these videos strike a string in your heart 
). If you can’t play the videos, just click the links under them.
Cartoons from the 80s
Link: www.youtube.com
Cartoons from the 90s
Link: www.youtube.com
Did you see the difference? Ignoring the better animation of the 90s, you’ll see that the cartoons of that decade are all more complicated. For example, most of the 80s cartoons have a plot that goes like that: A band of heroes (good guys) fights with a bad guy. Not very complicated, huh? But looking at the 90s we see Batman, the Pinky and the Brain, Looney Toons, Pokemon, Yu-gi-Oh! and many other, which escape this stereotype.
Concerning especially Pokemo and Yu-Gi-Oh! we have another factor of complexity that contributes to the general rise of IQ scores. That is, the games.
If you don’t know, pokemon and yu-gi-oh! are also card games. The mother of modern card games is Magic the Gathering. What is so interesting about these games is that the strategy that one must use in order to win, involves the use of probabilities. Obviously, most children can’t make very good use of probabilities, but, even an instictive use of probabilities at a young age is impressive, considering the fact that most people face problems with probabilities even during their adult lives.
Your new nootropic agent
But games are bound by the laws of physical reality. There is a category of games that can do much more for your intelligence. That is video games!
In a world of ever increasing complexity what better example of an IQ booster than a video game? Video games can incorporate any kind of rules without limitations. Just think of how many genres of games exist. First, we had just tetris and pacman. Then we had adventure games. Today, we have real times strategies, massive online role playing games, actions adventures, and the list goes on!
Of course, someone might argue that video games intelligence can’t live up to the challenges of the real world, but take a look at this article at the Wired magazine.
You Play World of Warcraft? You’re Hired!
The article describes how WoW can be a productive learning environment
"Virtual environments are safe platforms for trial and error. The chance of failure is high, but the cost is low and the lessons learned are immediate."
The article also says how Stephen Gillett (senior manager in engineering in Yahoo) is using his skills acquired through Wow to his work.
Magnificent, isn’t it?
Candidates for the new management position
Scientific American Mind has an excellent article concerning what we just discussed: Solving the IQ Puzzle. The article is by James Flynn himself, and provides the problems that have been found concerning the relation among intelligence and the Flynn effect, and proposing theoritical solutions based on the data. The article also contains a mention about the increasing complexity of the surroundings we just mentioned and provides the examples of Tetris, Myst and Grand Theft Auto and tv series Hill Street Blues, as indications for the aformentioned observation.
I wish I could go on with this subject , but this article is getting too long, already. For once again, we just scratched the surface of the topics we discussed. We didn’t go any further into IQ, we didn’t talk about the various explanations for the Flynn Effect, and its political implications concerning race, and, finally, we didn’t analyze the possible applications of the video games for the educational system and the every day life. I promise I will dig into these subjects in future articles. To compensate I added a few very interesting articles in the further reading section. For know, just use this article as an excuse for playing video games for countless hours See you next time!
Further Reading:
Video games help improve visual skills
Electronic Media, Attention, and Visual Spatial Skills
Video Games and TV: Do They Make Kids Smarter?
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:32 am
Thanks for mentioning my blog. You’ve hit on some interesting points!
October 6th, 2008 at 12:21 am
guy, something like reading increases your intelligence about ten times as much as TV, movies, or video games.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Well, it depends on what you consider intelligence. Reading might simply make you lose time. It highly depends on what you read, what movies you see and what games you play.