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The Flynn Effect refers to the increase in average IQ over time.

IQ tests are updated periodically, to replace out-of-date questions (“typewriters” have given way to “computers”; dated words like “delectable” have been jettisoned for modern jargon like “operational”). Whenever a test was updated, a single group of people would take both versions—the obsolete and the replacement—to check that each ranked people in a similar order.

As a matter of completeness, the groups’ average scores on both versions would be published in the test manuals. And, pretty much always, the group would score higher on the old test. An IQ score shows how a candidate does in comparison with a large “standardisation sample” of people who took the test when it was first introduced. Flynn’s discovery indicated that the people who were used to calibrate the earlier tests were consistently easier for test-takers to beat.

Now Flynn found himself with a much bolder hypothesis. Rather than just one disadvantaged group—black Americans—having made cognitive gains, could the average person be getting smarter? He looked up every study in which a single group had been given two tests, one calibrated before the other. By 1984 he had compiled results from more than 7,000 subjects, and about a dozen combinations of tests. And they pointed to a startling conclusion: that white Americans had been steadily gaining around three-tenths of an IQ point a year for almost half a century.

And scientists have made a video game, playing which predictably raises the player’s IQ.

Jaeggi’s volunteers were trained daily for about 20 minutes for either 8, 12, 17 or 19 days (with weekends off). They were given IQ tests both before and after the training. The researchers found that the IQ of trained individuals increased significantly more than controls – and that the more training people got, the higher the score.