“Brain-training games are big business. Self-improvement desires render us vulnerable to marketing claims that products will make us thinner, healthier, or in the case of brain-training software, smarter.
Enter science, “the blabber-mouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends”, as Ned Flanders once described it. Until now, there had been scant empirical data on whether or not brain training actually improves your cognitive ability.
Alas, research published today in Nature indicates that the possibility of improving your general cognitive abilities by playing brain-training games is an empty promise. More than 11,000 volunteers were split into three groups: one who played brain-training-type exercises; a second practised more general cognitive tests; and a control group who just pootled around the internet answering random questions. They did this for six weeks, bookended by benchmarking tests of memory, reasoning and other standard tests of cognitive function.
All three groups displayed improvement in the tasks they were performing. But all three groups also showed only small and similar increases in the benchmarking tests, possibly simply the effect of repeating the test. Conclusion? Practising brain-training games will improve your performance on brain-training games, but that effect will not transfer to other aspects of brain function. They will not make you brainier, so you may as well just pootle around on the internet. As lead researcher Adrian Owen says: “You’re not going to get better at playing the trumpet by practising the violin.”"
Read more at The Guardian
If it did work, I’d be much better at many things; football, war (both futuristic and current) and running around cities stealing car – to name but a few.
I saw about this on BBC news last night and got so angry that my partner had to switch over before I uncontrollably punched him in the face out of pure rage.
Brain training games ARE NOT INTENDED TO INCREASE YOUR “IQ.” They never have been, and any that claim to do so are not the ones that you should be playing. Brain training games do not exist to make you smarter/brainier/etc.
They are designed to potentially help your memory and the like by teaching you repetitive methods that you can incorporate into your life, by constant practise. That is all. They are not designed to make you smarter.
So it’s a totally nonsensical study that could’ve been put to better use if they understood the point of brain training games.
Why didn’t they study the effect that they have on answering tests?
LOL pootle.
I always thought the main idea behind brain training, including old favourites like cryptic crosswords, was to maintain the brain, rather than improve it?
(Yes that is my real name. Not a specially made up alias for this topic)
Then my time wasted on brain game called “counting” is lost? What a pity.
I KNEW IT! *throws Nintendo Brain Training out the window*
ROFL @ john braine! great serendipitous occasion here!
speaking of which–while pootling, i found this:
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/flynneffect.shtml
so, not to worry–we are all getting smarter. as a species, that is.
Whether this is true or not, it’s still a good idea to keep your brain ‘ticking over’. My job is so boring that if I didn’t do a crossword puzzle or something at lunchtime my brain would literally start turning to mush.
LC x
The only time I used one of those ‘brain training’ things I had to say the colour the word was written in, although I said everyone correctly it didn\’t recognise my accent & gave me a mental age of 81 !
I was 45 NOT 81
Waste of money.
Different games for different ages, for different personalities. Only we ourselves, or someone with great insight in someone else, will know what we need to work the most to keep it up the longest in a way that we can live independently. Not all wish for that though. Being independent. But most wish for that the most, with ageing. Free choice. To ask for help when we feel like that, not because we have no choice.
I think I will bring a little lens with me to the supermarket .. can’t read the smallest fonts on some bottles any more (vitamines) on some days. Font size 2 or 3 I think it is. Just make the bottle bigger you fools or cut down on text. I mean .. font 2 or 3???? What’s next .. microscopic glasses?
I was always under the impression that these games were meant to ‘exercise’ your brain and keep it healthy not to actually improve your brain and cleverness.
no wonder my trumpet playing is so rubbish!
I have been playing the piano for 10 years. For the last five months, I have practised daily and have shown a large improvement.
I have also been studying musical theory.
Now my guitar playing has drastically improved without touching a guitar.
I found out by picking up a friend’s guitar.
My increased dexterity and improved understanding of theory have transferred well to another instrument.
So I bought a cheap guitar.
Possibly my fingers are stronger and more flexible as a result of exercises and piano practise.
My experience (anecdotaql, dubious, unscientific) leads me to believe that musical skills can be transferred.
An inability to transfer skills (or generalise, as it is known) is a key trait in autism.
Learning is complex and individualised.
If practise does not make you smarter…
Then intelligence is mostly genetic… (or fixed)
then wage structures punish the intellectually inferior for a trait they cannot change…
the american dream is a lie…
wage inequality is a form of intellectual oppression…
the poor are not ‘lazy’…
your cleaner does a great job, how much does he/she earn?…
just a thought, i know that environment plays a massive part in learning, but we really do punish people throughout their lives for not being clever enough to earn a good wage. What is that about?
Don’t say I am a commie just for believing that everybody’s children deserve the same start in life. We are not all financial wizards or of managerial quality. Why should anyone suffer when they work hard?
A light-hearted blog brought down by the master miserabilist. When I read my own posts I want to flame myself. Boo.
Will I ever learn?
Maybe by practising… but if I practise posting on other forums, will it improve my posts here?
This Nature journal study on brain training didn’t take into account the environments and techniques necessary to make brain training actually work.
Make sure you have all the facts about brain training before making a final judgment. Not all programs are alike, and LearningRx helps kids learn every day, with brain training that really works. If you’re interested, you can read a professional response to the recent Nature journal study here: http://www.learningrxblog.com/nature-journal-brain-training-study/
Thanks!