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Brain Training Games Don't Train Your Brain
Stoobalou writes with this excerpt from Thinq.co.uk: "A new study has shown that brain training games do little to exercise the grey matter. Millions of people who have been prodding away at their Nintendo DS portable consoles, smug in the knowledge that they are giving their brains a proper work-out, might have to rethink how they are going to stop the contents of their skulls turning into mush."
No more brain training. It's back to killing it slowly with beer for me.
It's one thing to ask whether these tests make you "smarter". But even the story says they improve speeds in taking the brain tests. I also notice that the control group didn't just sit there doing nothing, they used the Internet, which may have "exercised the brain" in some fashion, assuming they weren't reading /.
Also, there does seem to be evidence that mental activity can ward off Alzheimer's and "Research has also found that cognitive leisure activities reduce the risk of cognitive decline."
Maybe it doesn't serve a practical purpose for some people, but it seems among the elderly at least there may be some benefit (?)
You can't stop your brain from slowly turning to mush. You may as well enjoy the ride.
f u cn rd ths u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgmng
I have been using brain training games for about 10 years now, and now I'm able to type 15wpm.
Practicing any skill requiring cognitive functions technically trains your brain.
The question is, what are the effects that people who play these kinds of games are hoping for?
.: Max Romantschuk
The article says, in essence, that the study found that using Brain Academy type software for six weeks did not improve cognitive function. However, nowhere does the study prove, as the article alleges, that use of such software could not slow the rate of cognitive decay. These are two entirely different things - the second one would require a long-term study tracking both users and non-users over, say, 20 or 30 years.
Modding "-1, Troll" is not a proper response if you disagree with me. Try reason.
...that your brain mostly benefited from doing different and new things. Trying new experiences, foods, languages, even things as simple as taking different routes to work and back create new paths in the brain which lead to quicker thinking and better recollection.
But if you take one new thing (a video game puzzle) and do the shit out of it, the value is rapidly lost.
At least that's how I've had it explained.
THL phish sticks
Anyone that thinks you'll go from a tard to a genius will be disappointed. However, practising anything improves you ability at that particular thing. Take normal video games and put a newbie in front of Contra and then stick in someone who has been playing it for years. There will be a huge difference. Some people see bigger gains than others. For instance if I continue playing Mega man games I do get better but I'll never master them. That and I don't think we should complain too much about something that helps people take interest in things like math over wasting their morning reading the Daily Mail, Sun or something equally brain damaging.
Well, short term studies tend to be more tractable in academia due to limited funding. But I don't really find the results all that surprising. The brain games don't really challenge deeper cognitive functions but try to simply train your physical memory to react better to rudimentary problems. Jotting down 6 x 7 really fast isn't likely to expand your mind. If you really wanted to sharpen your brain, you'd study something like physics, philosophy, or music in greater depth. Those and other subjects use rudimentary skills in a broader sense to build more complex models, which improve your understanding of the world.
What really caught me was they said that doing the training sped up your ability to do things you trained on (duh). NPR gave the example of a baggage scanner where the number of bags going in and out changes, you you have to keep track of the number of bags in the machine at any given moment.
So that may not be useful to your everyday life, and games that are similar aren't supposed to benefit. But what about the games you do in real life? As I remember, the first two Brain Training games Nintendo put out had many real world things like simple math problems (6 + 3, 7 * 5), reading analog clocks, and making change. These are all things people do in real life. Maybe doing tons of elementary math problems won't make you smarter, but it will make you faster and more confident when you have to do simple math, and that's a plus.
Count the number of spinning yellow number 7s in this jumble may not be that applicable to real life, but some are.
Nintendo never advertised the games would make you smarter. They framed it as "keeping your brain fit", like you keep your muscles fit by using them. There have been tons of copy-cats since Brain Training sold so well, and it wouldn't surprise me they claimed (or hinted) they would make you smarter. But doing simple math problems can't make you smarter, only better at simple math problems.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Plus some kinds of activity seem to indeed increase performance of your brain...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back
http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/
One that hath name thou can not otter
Actually I saw this interesting documentary, and one of the reasons humans excel over animals is that we "learn" instead of "understand".
With two test groups, one of children, the other of chimpanzees.
The first test there is a black box. The instructor shows them to tap the top of the box with a stick, tap the sides of the box, slide a piece on the top over, and turn a crank, and out comes a tasty treat. The kids follow this exact process and get rewarded with candy. Chimpanzees also follow this process and get treated with their own kind of reward (I think it was peanuts or something).
In the second test, the box is identical, except for one thing. Instead of being black, the entire box is made of clear plexiglass. As an adult you could easily observe instantly that tapping the top and sides of the box, and sliding the item on top, do absolutely nothing. The only thing required to get the treat is to turn the crank. However, EVERY CHILD tested (and I believe it was more than a dozen) repeated the unnecessary steps, whereas only 1/3rd of chimps followed the steps, showing that 66% of Chimps were able to understand what was going on.
Upon first reflection I thought they meant to say that children are idiots and chimpanzees clearly know whats going on, and are by far more intelligent than we've realized. But the documentary goes on to explain that this is actually a feature of human behavior that has promoted societal growth. Without the ability to ignore understanding and simply reproduce activities, mankind might not have reached the level it has today.
My (at the time) doctor once prescribed me something homeopathic. I've also heard about one quite complicated surgery (of knee?) which gives no better results than placebo. I'm sure there are more examples...
One that hath name thou can not otter
"some worthless game where large-breasted ladies in not much clothing chop up mutant dinosaurs with giant chain saws" I want this game.
~NoX
I remember reading a study about how playing music helps you retain much cognitive function.
If you play piano, say, you are using memorization, hand-eye coordination, hand-ear coordination, sense of rhythm and interval perception. If you play jazz or some other improvised music, you also have to think ahead, count time, and maybe most important, use the higher creative functions. Your doing all that while sending tons of neuro-muscular information to your feet, hands and fingers. On brain-scans, music seems to light up more areas of the brain than other activities.
Plus, chicks dig musicians, which will of course keep you young in parts of your body besides the brain.
You are welcome on my lawn.
At the risk of being modded down (and the certain doom of being mocked), I feel compelled to follow up on this and feed the troll. I went the UoP route, and found out that many (perhaps most) of their online degree programs were little more than diploma mills at the time. And at that point I entered a rather profound depression because I realized I'd been a fool and had probably wasted tens of thousands of dollars (yes, smart people do get suckered too).
However, it wasn't until later that I discovered that I might have actually lucked out. I got my Masters in Education - Curriculum & Instruction, which actually happens to be a very strong program in its own right, because of the sheer number of professional educators who take the UoP's Education grad-level courses, and teach them. All but two of my professors were educators, education professionals, or senior education management (the two that weren't - well, I considered asking for their photos to print out on my toilet paper so I could wipe my ass with their face - they were THAT bad). Not only that, but I learned a hell of a lot about education - the philosophy, the psychology, the pedagogy, and about how school districts operate when it comes to curriculum and teaching. And I was able to take all that information and apply it to my corporate world quite successfully. Which shocked the hell out of me because I initially thought my degree was worthless.
If I must be flamed for saying I have a MAED from University of Phoenix, then flame me. I was taken in, as were many other people. But, surprisingly, I emerged with an actual graduate-level education in Education that was worth the hassle (which impressed my wife, who's a teacher herself), and has proved itself. I don't know now if UoP cleaned up their act. I suspect they have as they haven't lost their accreditation, the DoL hasn't found any new complaints, and now everyone and their uncle is getting in on the online education program.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
The test group should not have been playing on the internet, they should have been vegitating in front of reality-tv. Those brain training games are not about stimulating an active mind but a stagnant one. It is for people who do nothing else that requires any thinking at all. Like slashdot editors...
It is the same as taking the stairs, that is not going to make an olympic gymnast any fitter, but for a cubible dweller, it can make a difference when it is the only excersise in the day.
Almost any gamer will not need these games, they are already playing. Brain games are for people who don't do anything else with their brain.
Tomorrow: Nintendogs not good for people with a real dog.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
But was Dual N-Back in the study?
That's not a rhetorical question - I'd really like to know.
Stating the bleeding obvious but apparently overlooked fact - the results of the study only apply to games included in the study.
What's more, IIRC Dual N-Back is claimed to improve creative intelligence, not necessarily IQ. I suspect the study was based on IQ-style tests.