I find anything that’s cognitively taxing makes a good test. By reflecting on the process of engaging with the subject, noticing what sorts of difficulties I have, how much more difficult than normal it seems to be, it’s pretty obvious how I am doing relative to baseline. For example, opening a math book that I’m somewhat familiar with but never made it all the way through is a good test of my cognitive abilities. It’s easy to look at a theorem or proof in a subject you’re somewhat familiar with and know how difficult it would ordinarily be for you to understand. You don’t need a precise estimate, just whether it’s approximately 50th percentile or 80th percentile, etc. Likewise, after reading the theorem and trying to either figure out why it is true before reading the proof, or reading the proof and seeing how quickly and easily you’re able to digest it, you compare the two. Apart from math, anything else that it is ordinarily difficult for you will do just fine.
I’m quite surprised that some people aren’t aware of this all the time without going to any special effort. It’s quite obvious to me without needing to test. I have tested myself with “brain games” like Lumosity, so I know that my subjective estimate is accurate, but I always know beforehand about how well I will do (barring fluke errors and that sort of thing) relative to normal.
For the people who have trouble just noticing how sharp they are relative to baseline, I’m curious if you have trouble finding tasks that would ordinarily be cognitively demanding (maybe everything you do is easy because you’re much smarter than I am, or because you don’t do much that challenges you)? Isn’t it obvious after trying to do something really difficult, even if it’s just turning over in your mind something that you learned recently?
I find anything that’s cognitively taxing makes a good test. By reflecting on the process of engaging with the subject, noticing what sorts of difficulties I have, how much more difficult than normal it seems to be, it’s pretty obvious how I am doing relative to baseline. For example, opening a math book that I’m somewhat familiar with but never made it all the way through is a good test of my cognitive abilities. It’s easy to look at a theorem or proof in a subject you’re somewhat familiar with and know how difficult it would ordinarily be for you to understand. You don’t need a precise estimate, just whether it’s approximately 50th percentile or 80th percentile, etc. Likewise, after reading the theorem and trying to either figure out why it is true before reading the proof, or reading the proof and seeing how quickly and easily you’re able to digest it, you compare the two. Apart from math, anything else that it is ordinarily difficult for you will do just fine.
I’m quite surprised that some people aren’t aware of this all the time without going to any special effort. It’s quite obvious to me without needing to test. I have tested myself with “brain games” like Lumosity, so I know that my subjective estimate is accurate, but I always know beforehand about how well I will do (barring fluke errors and that sort of thing) relative to normal.
For the people who have trouble just noticing how sharp they are relative to baseline, I’m curious if you have trouble finding tasks that would ordinarily be cognitively demanding (maybe everything you do is easy because you’re much smarter than I am, or because you don’t do much that challenges you)? Isn’t it obvious after trying to do something really difficult, even if it’s just turning over in your mind something that you learned recently?