I’m sure we have all heard this before. Apparently your brain can be considered as a muscle, that if not used frequently will slip away. Your brain will become weak, and soon you won’t be able to remember where you parked your car, what it looked like, or why you drove there in the first place.
Fortunately the “Brain Training Game” is here to help us maintain excellent memory, attention and spacial cognitive abilities! In fact, these Brain Games actually claim to improve these abilities in everyone. In other words, you play a game, you get smarter, play some more, and get smarter still.
Or do you?
Firstly, there is little scientific peer-reviewed proof. This is because whilst the idea is quite old, the Brain Training gimmick is actually still in it’s early growth stages. In November ‘07, The New York Times published figures reporting the brain-training market was worth just $2 million in 2005, but is now worth over $80 million. This is due to the launch of the hugely popular “Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training” Game. It was released on Nintendo DS, and is a nifty little package of quick draw maths, Sudoku, and reading exercises. It can then calculate your “Brain Age” based on the speed and accuracy of your responses. Effectively, the more you play, the younger your brain gets, moving safely away from retirement. It seams a bit outdated already, because the Sudoku craze is sort of over.
Since then, many people have come into the market. These range from thousands of free on-line games, that are simply re-packaged games off skill, to very expensive software suites. The Rolls Royce of the software suites is the “Posit Brain Fitness Program”. This program starts from $395.00 US, and goes to great lengths to explain the “science” behind the curtains. But is it just digital snake-oil?
Well, first the idea is quite sound. The brain training game, is simply very modern Brain Teaser. The earliest brain teasers dated back to Greek mathematician Archimedes who invented math problems for his peers to solve, for ‘fun’. And it is actually well documented in scientific studies that regular mental activity delays the onset of cognitive decline and dementia. Also, the “Use it or lose it” hypotheses has been tested in and was validated in 2006. The test ran between 1998 and 2004, where 1,884 healthy older adults, were put through an intensive 6-week program designed to train them on their memory, reasoning powers, and processing speed. Not only did the program work, but when the participants were re-tested 5 years later, the effects were still detectable. However, on the downside, there was no evidence that the training had any effect on the participants activities in the real world. (Subtext; Cracking the Expert Sudoku, will not help you in life).
We can also assume that Brain Training programs have never decreased a persons cognitive abilities. But, that logic is as poor as using anti wrinkle crème because it has never made anybody look older. So until they can scientifically prove that Brain Training Programs will actually improve your real world mental processing, I am going to stick to the free online brain teasers for now.
Oh and if you are wondering about a really good one, then simply have a crack at the the “GROW Games” on the eye maze site. Weird stuff.
