Siegfried Lehrl

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Siegfried Lehrl (born May 30, 1943 in Schlackenwerth , Sudetenland ) is a German psychologist who is concerned with measuring and changing the mental performance of healthy and sick people.

Life

Immediately after graduating from high school in Hammelburg , Lower Franconia , Siegfried Lehrl studied civil engineering in Aachen , then psychology in Cologne and Erlangen . After employment as an academic counselor and research assistant at the Erlangen University Psychiatric Clinic, he did his doctorate on "Influence of past and acute hospital stays on fluid and crystallized intelligence" at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Erlangen.

From 1980 to 1984 Siegfried Lehrl was head of the department for medical information psychology at the Institute for Cybernetics Paderborn and deputy director of the institute. From 1984 to 1989 he was an academic senior counselor at the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. From 1988 to 2000 he also headed the “Research and Practice” department in the Department of Medical Psychology and Psychopathometry. From 1989 he was Academic Director at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (at the Psychiatric Clinic), where he retired in autumn 2008. From then until the beginning of 2011 he built in the Health Academy Mainburg e. V. as its head a competence and research center for bio-mental education and health promotion (KFB) and still teaches medical psychology at the university on the basis of a teaching assignment .

Since 1997 he has been president of the Society for Brain Training, which he co-founded in 1989 . V. , a "non-profit association for the promotion of mental fitness."

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From 1968 to 1980 Lehrl was particularly concerned with the development of psychometric tests for intelligence and depression - as well as dementia - as well as pain characteristics. This resulted in processes that are largely still in use today.

Two test procedures are mainly known: the multiple choice vocabulary intelligence test (MWT) and the short test for general basic quantities of information processing (KAI). The MWT is used to quickly measure the intelligence quotient (IQ), especially the level of crystallized intelligence. In people with mild to moderate dementia, it reflects the level of intelligence before the onset of the disorder (premorbid IQ). The KAI is a short test to measure the “working memory” of the human short-term memory in the unit of measurement bit . The size of the short storage capacity is based on the detection of the information processing speed (bit / s) and the memory span (s). Claude Shannon and Helmar Frank laid the foundations of this information psychological concept .

Lehrl's accomplishments were to operationalize the concept through simple test procedures and to demonstrate clear individual differences in these sizes between people. In 1974 and 1975 he and his colleagues were also able to publish evidence that the two basic quantities have close relationships with intelligence, especially fluid intelligence. At the beginning of the 80s, close connections with the genetic basis of the general factor of intelligence were found.

In 1986, Lehrl deduced from the discoveries of brain research that the “working memory” and thus also the “fluid intelligence” are mainly located in the prefrontal brain. This has since been confirmed several times using imaging methods. On the other hand, studies published by the Lübeck pathologist H. Haug at the beginning of the 1980s had shown that the frontal lobe shrinks sharply with age, especially when mentally under-challenged.

In 1981 Lehrl designed a program to promote intelligence with Bernd Fischer and Wolfgang Eissenhauer. It should be particularly efficient and therefore primarily promote "working memory". Therefore, the focus of the practical application was placed on exercises that were developed according to the working memory concept and the activation model that goes back to Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson .

The authors had designed and disseminated the term “ brain jogging ” for this program . Because of its frequent use in public, with strong shifts in meaning, the term "Mental Activation Training" was introduced in 1992.

The close connection between “working memory capacity” and brain performance suggested that biological influences should also be used to promote working memory and the associated fluid intelligence. Since the mid-1970s, Lehrl et al. Have been conducting studies on the influence of nootropics and drugs for high blood pressure. With the beginning of the brain jogging program, investigations into the influence of movements followed, initially leg movements on exercise bikes. In 1997, studies were carried out on the influence of chewing gum: During this activity, mental performance increased.

From the year 2000, ophthalmologist Kristian Gerstmeyer demonstrated through cataract surgical implantation of artificial lenses that the improvement in vision in the case of cataracts acquired later (lens opacity , cataracts) leads to considerable increases in working memory and fluid intelligence. Shortly afterwards, Lehrl confirmed the same with hearing aid acoustician Reinhold Funk and ENT doctor Klaus Seifert for adults who are hard of hearing and who received their first hearing aid . In 2013, together with Peter Sturm, he presented a comprehensive program to promote mental performance, which includes both mental and physical measures, in a book entitled "Brain-Tuning". Extensive scientific reviews of the effectiveness of brain-tuning were carried out on the basis of the course program "All around fit - also in the head" between 2008 and 2015 and the effect was confirmed. The results were published by David John et al. in 2015.

In a way, as a by-product of the development of measurement methods, Lehrl has been developing a measure since 1984, the Science Impact Index SII, for the objective recording of the research quality of scientists. The SII was standardized from 1992 to 1994 as a test for 42 medical disciplines for the 14,000 habilitated / professors in German medicine. In 1995, the book “The leading medical researchers in Germany” appeared on the top ten percent of each of these disciplines.

Lehrl has authored numerous scientific and lay publications, including 30 books.

Works (selection)

Psychometric testing procedures

Recognition of scientists with high research quality

Findings on mental performance

  • Subjective time quantum and intelligence. Basic studies from cybernetics and humanities (GrKG) 15 , 1974, 91–96.
  • with B. Fischer: The Basic Parameters of Human Information Processing: Their Role in the Determination of Intelligence. Person. individual Diff., 9, 1988, 883-896.
  • with B. Fischer: A basic information psychological parameter (BIP) for the reconstruction of concepts of intelligence. Europ. J. Person., 4, 1990, 259-286.
  • with B. Straub, R. Straub: Information psychological elementary building blocks of intelligence. Basic studies in cybernetics and humanities (GrKG) 16. 1975, 41–50.
  • with V. Weiss , HG Frank : Psychogenetics of intelligence. Supplement to GrKG / Human Cybernetics 27, 1986. ISBN 3-808001-06-2 .
  • PISA - a worldwide intelligence test. Mentally Fit, 1, 2005, 3-6.

Promotion of mental performance in general

  • Thinking for yourself makes you fit. Ebersberg: Vless 1986, 4th revised. Ed., 1994, ISBN 3-88562-024-3 .
  • GeJo guide. Ebersberg: Vless 1990, 3rd revised. Ed., 1995, ISBN 3-88562-057-X .
  • RAM instead of IQ. Ebersberg: Vless, ISBN 3-88562-079-0 .
  • Mental success training - using the biology of intelligence - mastering everyday life better. Cologne: DSV Deutscher Sportverlag GmbH, 2005, ISBN 3-937630-08-2 .
  • with B. Fischer, G. Koch, H. Loddenkemper: Brain jogging: successfully training mind and memory. Oberursel: Mediteg 1984, 6th edition, 1992, ISBN 3-924373-10-8 .
  • with M. Lehrl, E. Weickmann: MAT Brain Jogging. 3 volumes. Ebersberg, Vless. 1994/95, ISBN 3-88562-060-X .
  • with P. Sturm: Brain-Tuning: faster - smarter - more concentrated. Because your brain can do more. Goettingen, BusinessVillage. 2013, ISBN 978-3-86980-230-5 .
  • with G. Wagner and G. Eissing: Increasing the level of creativity through "brain-friendly" nutrition. In: G. Mehlhorn, K. Schöppe, F. Schulz (eds.): Developing talents and promoting creativity. kopaed, Munich 2015, pp. 625–649, ISBN 978-3-86736-438-6 .
  • with D. John and A. Scheder “All-round fit - also in the head.” Examination of a fitness program. Mentally fit 2015: 25 (3): 3–5.
  • with G. Wagner and E. Gräßel (eds.): Mentally fit in school, work and everyday life . kopaed, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-86736-441-6 .

Promotion of mental performance in sick people

  • with M. Brem et al .: Advancement of physical process by mental activation: A prospective controlled study. Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, 2012, 1221-1228.
  • with K. Gerstmeyer: Cataract- related changes in information processing. Ophthalmologist 101, 2004, 158-163.
  • with R. Funk, K. Seifert: The first hearing aid increases mental performance. ENT 53, 2005, 852-862.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ He presented the results of his research to the public in 1999, see: Researchers: Chewing gum promotes intellectual motivation. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung No. 56 of March 8, 1999, p. 13. - In a letter to the Bavarian Minister of Education, he advised "to think seriously about the mandatory chewing gum in class."
personal data
SURNAME Lehrl, Siegfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Schlackenwerth , Sudetenland