Into Motivation

As we get older, we occasionally feel that we would like to give our possibly faltering brain performance a little bit of a boost. One technique of improving memory and other brain abilities seems to be brain training. This comprises a variety of computer activities intended to help you become better qualified at various brain functions like memory, problem-solving and simple numeracy. Oddly enough though, we are inclined to think that due to the fact we progress at playing the brain training games, that these abilities are instantly transferable and therefore valuable in other brain functions that we need to accomplish.

The multi-million dollar brain training games industry would no doubt claim that its mental exercises are based on sound neurological theory and that therefore there is a reasonable possibility of improving your memory and other skills through using its mind exercise software. They have not however, at least to my knowledge, published the results of any studies that they have made into this area.

So BBC television in the UK decided to undertake a large-scale study. They teamed up with the Alzheimer’s Society and the British Medical Research Council, and together they came up with a scientific study of the effects of playing brain training games on people’s ability to remember things and other mental skills. The published results were quite surprising.

The researchers wanted to learn whether playing a number of computer-based activities, including memory exercises, over a six week time period, all developed to exercise different areas of the brain, would result in individuals in the study to be better able to employ their mental skills in other areas not connected to playing brain training games. The experiment involved a good cross-section of thirteen thousand of the adult British public.

In accordance with proper experimental design practice, there were two groups of participants in the

experiment. Volunteers were randomly assigned either to the experimental or the control group.

The experimental group spent ten minutes a day for six weeks playing a set of brain training games designed to exercise a large spectrum of mental skills including memory. When retested at the end of the study, their ability to perform the brain games they had trained on had improved by a third, against their initial performance in them. The control group spent the same amount of time as the others surfing the internet.

This appears great; but were these improved brain skills transferable from the mind exercises with which the group was already familiar, to normal core intellectual skills, such as problem-solving and remembering sequences of numbers? Both groups of subjects were tested on these skills both before the trial and afterwards. The average score for both groups at the trial beginning was the same.

Upon retesting at the end of the trial, the control group’s score had improved by 4.35 per cent. Surprisingly however, the score for the experimental group was almost identical. It represented only a 6.52 per cent increase over its original score. So, statistically there was no difference between the two groups. Of course, what they could not conclude was whether the small improvement was just the effect of working online. Perhaps there could have been another group that did nothing online.

So if you have been playing these brain training games with the intention of improving your memory, is it time to give them up and put them out to pasture? Well, that is entirely up to you, but do bear in mind that studies, no matter what their size, can be flawed and that what does not work for some people could work for you. If you really care about improving memory, then there are many other memory strategies you can explore, such as playing sports, taking a look at improving your diet and even going to the odd concert.