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Can 'brain games' really help you improve the way your brain functions?
You've probably seen ads for apps promising to make you smarter in just a few minutes a day. Hundreds of so-called "brain training" programs can be purchased for download. These simple games are designed to challenge mental abilities, with the ultimate goal of improving the performance of important everyday tasks.
But can just clicking away at animations of swimming fish or flashed streets signs on your phone really help you improve the way your brain functions?
Two large groups of scientists and mental health practitioners published consensus statements, months apart in 2014, on the effectiveness of these kinds of brain games. Both included people with years of research experience and expertise in cognition, learning, skill acquisition, neuroscience and dementia. Both groups carefully considered the same body of evidence available at the time.
Yet, they issued exactly opposite statements.
One concluded that "there is little evidence that playing brain games improves underlying broad cognitive abilities, or that it enables one to better navigate a complex realm of everyday life."
The other argued that "a substantial and growing body of evidence shows that certain cognitive training regimens can significantly improve cognitive function, including in ways that generalize to everyday life."
[...]The most important lesson from the literature on training is this: If you want to improve your performance on a task that's important to you, practice that task. Playing brain games may only make you better at playing brain games.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday June 13 2019, @07:15AM (3 children)
Does Starcraft [cnet.com] count?
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Thursday June 13 2019, @07:47AM
Diablo II counts. For example, go to the desert, kill a locust of flies with a spear and it drops a sword. Gain XP from that, level up and get +20 health points. So it is clear that repeated stabbing with a spear improves the health.
Now let me tell you about Fus Ro Dah...
(Score: 1) by Mer on Thursday June 13 2019, @08:26AM
non brain games might be better for analysis ability as long as you play them as a problem to be solved optimally.
Shut up!, he explained.
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Thursday June 13 2019, @08:23PM
Obviously brain exercise does change brain functions! This is basic. LEARNING improves brain related functions. Playing can be a natural form of learning; evolved play behaviors have practical learning benefits... all mammals do it. The devil is in the details. If you are not learning, you gain little from the exercise. If you game the exercise and only learn the minimum understanding to get the rewards then you will gain far less. Like in school where you game the evaluation system rather than just learn the material by doing what you should. Once you learn or master something doing it just helps plant it into long term memory and you gain nothing. If the task is too similar to a previous one it's largely redundant.
animals conserve energy and brain changes/learning requires a lot of energy! like 45 watts when learning. Finding similar patterns lets you make a task easier; and it's natural to avoid using energy, being lazy is a survival instinct. Humans mastered it, we over think to the point where now we have to force ourselves to do pointless activities just to maintain our health.