Nintendo brain-trainer ‘no better than pencil and paper’ (The Times):
“The survey of ten-year-old children found no evidence to support claims in Nintendo’s advertising campaign, featuring Nicole Kidman, that users can test and rejuvenate their grey cells. “The Nintendo DS is a technological jewel. As a game it’s fine,” said Alain Lieury, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Rennes, Brittany, who conducted the survey. “But it is charlatanism to claim that it is a scientific test.”

Comments: as we have said before, Nintendo Brain Age and Brain Training should be seen as what they are: a game. And the construct of one’s having a  “brain age” makes no sense.

Having said that, the researcher quoted then offers, out of the blue, a highly inaccurate statement:

“The study tested Nintendo’s claims on 67 ten-year-olds. “That’s the age where you have the best chance of improvement,” Professor Lieury said. “If it doesn’t work on children, it won’t work on adults.”

That assertion (that something won’t “work” on adults because it won’t “work” on kids) makes even less sense than having a “brain age”. The Cognitive Reserve research shows the need for lifelong mental stimulation – and the reality is that kids are more exposed to novelty and challenge all the time, whereas older adults may not be. Further, that claim (something that doesn’t “work” on kids won’t “work” on adults) has already been tested and proven wrong:

In a couple of recent trials, discussed here, the same strategy game (Rise of Nations, a complex challenge for executive functions), played for the same number of hours (23)  showed quite impressive (untrained) cognitive benefits in people over 60 – and no benefits in people in their 20s.

How can this be? Well, we often say that our brains need novelty, variety and challenge – and it should be obvious that those ingredients depend on who we are Read the rest of this entry »

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Quick, Are videogames good or bad?

That’s an impossible question. Good or bad for what? What  specific games are we talking about? More importantly, what are they substituting for, given time is a limited resource?  Contributor Jeremy Adam Smith, managing director of Greater Good magazine, offers an in-depth review on the trade-offs videogames present in: Playing the Blame Game.

News Round-Up

Math Innovation in UK Schools: a recent (and unpublished) study seems to support the potential role for “Serious Games” in education. Learning and Teaching Scotland reports significant improvements in pupils’ concentration and behavior, on top of math skills, after using Nintendo Brain Training game.

During the research phase before the publication of the special report Brain Fitness Centers in Seniors Housing – A Field in the Making, published by the American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA), we realized that there were equal amounts of interest and confusion among executives and professionals thinking about adding computer-based cognitive exercise products to their mix of health & wellness activities, so we included the Evaluation Checklist that follows.

The real-life experiences at leading organizations such as Senior Star Living, Belmont Village Senior Living, Erickson Retirement Communities and others were instrumental in the development of the Checklist. We hope it is useful.

Brain Fitness Programs For Seniors Housing, Healthcare and Insurance Providers: Evaluation Checklist

Over the next several years, it is likely that many seniors housing operators will begin to carefully evaluate a growing number of options to include “brain fitness centers” in their communities.

Some options will require purchasing a device, such as Nintendo products, or the Dakim touch-screen system. Others will require installing software in PCs in existing or new computer labs, such as Posit Science, Cogmed or CogniFit’s programs. Others will be fully available online, such as those offered by Lumos Labs, Happy Neuron and My Vigorous Mind. And still others may be technology-free, promising engaging combinations of interactive, group-based, activities with pen-and-paper exercises.

Creating a solid business case will help communities navigate through this growing array of options. We suggest communities consider this SharpBrains Checklist for Brain Fitness Centers:

1. Early Users: Who among our residents is ready and willing to do the program? How are they reacting to the pilot testing of the program?

2. Cognitive benefits: What are the specific benefits claimed for using this program? Under what scenario of use (how many hours/week, how many weeks)? What specific cognitive skill(s) does the program train? How will we measure progress? Read the rest of this entry »

Today I had a great conversation with Martin Buschkuehl, one of the University of Michigan’s Cognitive Neuroimaging Lab researchers  involved in the cognitive training study that has received much media attention (New York Times, Wired, Science News…) since late April, when the study was published at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Reference: Jaeggi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Jonides, J., & Perrig, W. J. (2008). Improving Fluid Intelligence With Training on Working Memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(19), 6829-6833 (You can read it here, with subscription).

Before you keep reading, let me clarify a couple of terms:

Read the rest of this entry »

An interesting recent article announcesPupils to start day with Nintendo Brain Training(UK’s Daily Telegraph). Some quotes:

- “Children at 16 primary schools are to start each day by playing on a Nintendo games console, it was disclosed yesterday.”

- “The pupils will play “brain training” exercises before lessons after a pilot scheme at a school in Dundee found that it boosted learning ability.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Orli from Neurontic tagged me with a new meme –writing about 8 Random Personal Facts- that is circulating among science bloggers.  Well, I will happily write about 8 facts that appeared in unexpected ways yet, seen with perspective, seem to be a type of non-random randomness, if that makes sense…  

1. As the oldest child, I was the most responsible/ serious/ with best grades…you get the picture. One of my youngest siblings specialized in teasing me and making my life difficult (from my perspective then). At some point, I realized that my automatic mental reaction to anything suspicious that happened in my life (my bike is not where I left it, there are 2 books missing…) was an angry “this must have been my brother!” followed by intra-family conflict and the need for UN peacekeepers. Let’s say he was responsible for only 40% of such events…so I realized my attitude made no sense and it was something I needed to control. So, at some point, I developed the mental habit of making fun of my own stupidity whenever that automatic reaction appeared, and protecting a more rational approach to solving the problem.
2. Around the same time, at a routine meeting between my mother, school staff and myself, someone made a comment along “Alvaro has spectacular grades, but he must understand that success in life does not depend on grades alone”. Fascinating, I remember thinking, how can that be possible? What may that mean? Is it not “fair” and self-evident that if I have great grades everything good will follow in life? Maybe this opened my mind to understanding that “intelligence” goes well beyond IQ…
3. For many years I kept a journal-like document with brief “lessons learned” and “concepts/ sayings / realities I don’t understand yet”. Something like a “diary of learning and things to be learned”. I don’t keep such a document anymore…and certainly not because now I understand everything.
4. My last 2 years in high school were extremely social, having relocated to a Read the rest of this entry »