Well, I've read a bunch of articles on this topic and, as before, I'm not
convinced of the effectiveness of these games. However, here are some other
points:
1) it's still unclear as to what exactly constitutes a "brain training game".
Many studies used different "challenging tasks" as their "brain training
activity" and it's too easy for companies that make the games to claim that the
researchers didn't use the "right" activity.
2) It's unclear how long someone would need to engage in the activity in order
to see effects. Even the authors of the recent Nature study (Owen, et. al)
admit that their training only lasted a total of 3 hours across 6 weeks and
maybe that wasn't enough.
3) Willis, et. al. (the complete citation can be found on my website - link
below) conducted a 5 year study (which included "booster sessions") and claimed
that they found some effects for the experimental group, but they had to admit,
"..evidence for transfer of the effects of cognitive training...was modest and
was not observed until the 5 years follow-up".
4) Smith et. al conducted an 8 week study (training occurred 1 hour a day, 5
days a week - I could never get my mother to do "brain training games" for that
long) and they report significant results but their effect sizes are from .20
to .33, which they claim are "clinically significant" ("Draft guidelines from
the American Psychological Association have defined a .20 effect size as the
threshold for clinical significant").
5) Papp, et al. in a metanalysis concluded that they "...found no evidence
that structured cognitive intervention programs delay or slow progression of
Alzheimer's Disease..."
6) CogMed (http://www.cogmed.com), a company that produces such "brain
training" activities puts there spin on the Nature study here:
http://www.cogmed.com/putting-brain-training-to-the-test-%E2%80%93-and-about-time
7) Here's the catch on CogMed: they claim that their program is "evidence
based", but if you go to their "evidence based" page
(http://www.cogmed.com/evidence-based-cognitive-training) they have a video of
someone who talks about how they have "seen [improvement] with their own eyes"
and nothing about the evidence!
8) One more on CogMed: their list of "peer reviewed studies"
(http://www.cogmed.com/research) contains a list of 10 articles - 4 of which
were authored by the same person (Klingberg)! Also, most of these articles are
about research on children even though they claim on the rest of the site that
their training can work on "..adults experiencing information overload or the
natural effects of aging".
All in all, not convincing. Good summary can be found in "The Invisible
Gorilla". If you want to hear my summary, here's the link to the episode from
my podcast:
http://www.thepsychfiles.com/2010/07/episode-128-do-brain-training-games-work/
I'm going to try to get my 90 year old mother (and 94 year old stepfather) to
walk more.
Michael
Michael Britt
[email protected]
http://www.thepsychfiles.com
Twitter: mbritt
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