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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday June 13 2019, @07:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the maybe-or-maybe-not dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 13 2019, @06:21PM (1 child)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday June 13 2019, @06:21PM (#855235) Journal

    ..the bizarre attempt to restrict the word "proof" to the mathematical sense when talking about philosophy of science is an artifact of debates in the philosophy of science only in the past century or so.

    It's a rhetorical technique used to ignore the vast amount of evidence behind certain, very specific, scientific domains.

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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday June 14 2019, @07:59AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday June 14 2019, @07:59AM (#855432) Homepage
    Why has reality fallen outside the 95% confidence bounds of every IPCC prediction for decades?

    It's the group that constantly changes their predictions every time their previous one is demonstrated to be false that you ought to be more critical of.

    I trust the Mayans more when it comes to predicting the end of the world.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves