I would also like to point out the incompetence in the data analysis performed in the small study. The error is common one, and occurs in the data shown in Fig. The conclusion statement is,. But you hit it on the nail above: There is no problem I can see with their calculations in this regard. This requires a separate statistical test, which was NOT performed. The authors are careful about how their conclusions are worded and avoid saying that Lumosity is better, instead saying only that Lumosity produced a statistically significant result while the non-Lumosity group did not.
A great article in Nature that originally pointed me to the rampant nature of this error, especially in neuroscience, is here:. This is behind a paywall, but the conclusion drawn is that a different test needs to be employed — the authors discover in these papers that,. In the extreme case, for example, one could say that the Lumosity group achieved significance with a p-value of 0. Thank you, David C, for a very thoughtful comment, I am no statistician but have had to use market and product research to aid decisions.
Here, the sample sizes are tiny and very dodgy. Or that anything at all has been learned, except, possibly, how to tick some boxes. In practical terms, it is not the research that matters finally, as it is marginal, right or wrong, It is the decision you decide on having read this very sketchy, very small. Why has so little research been done? It is easy and cheap to do! Maybe other small studies have not shown glamorous results? Its definitely a no-brainer!
So, having read through the original article, and the very interesting, uniquely-toned responses, I must say that the first I noticed by Nuffin Doone was remarkably enjoyable— so enjoyable, in fact, that I became a bit sad that the next article was written so… well, so scientifically. And if I might be so bold as to say repetitive? His brain is just interested in things slightly different than mine is at this time. Point is, I suppose… no, wait. The point… I mean, MY point.
I very much enjoyed all of the responses here. Or, most of them. I enjoyed the varying array of types of responses, rather. I think that this article is missing the main point of Luminosity which is that it contains fun games that are exercising your brain in a way that you might not be doing on a day-to-day basis. The other good think is that it contains games that are focusing on different areas of the brain speed, memory, flexibility,etc… whereas a game like a Crossword would only train flexibility for example. Of course you could find several free games here and there that would train all these areas, set time limits, register all your results,etc..
In my case I am feel like Luminosity helped me to improve some skills like orientation so I would recommend people to give it a try and make their own mind, as for a lot of thing s in life. It is of course whatever turns you on! There is reasonable evidence that using your brain involves learning, simply from the history of the human race.
There are, however, implications that this is some proven great training for the mind. Not so long ago Coca Cola was launched as a brain tonic and many have spent money on it since. Now it is the biggest food brand in the world and among one of the most injurious to health. Critical review and attempts at scientific proof are helpful in sizing up any innovation. Apologies for spelling Lumosity incorrectly as Luminosity. Despite studying the thing quite a bit, it failed to teach me its brand name. There is a suggestion above that the US military is funding research into Lumosity and the commenter asks if they have been duped?
During the second world war they expensively researched parachuting live butterflies imbued with incendiary material down the chimneys of Japanese households in the hope of setting light to the country. This is on the official record. Anybody could be right about anything. And in many countries people are still free to get it wrong. For me it is a question of probabilities, against a limited supply of money. Yes, I think the point is not whether Lumosity exercises the brain but whether other free games or activities do the same thing. And most of all: Thank you for your guiding light in this discussion.
Focused, hard mental practice at becoming a bit better everytime. Lumosity is the purest of evil. I mean, they have a good marketing department so they must be? In all seriousness, this article is ludicrous. It is however a flexible, fun and convenient one. I have been playing Lumosity for bout 5 month and completed about games by now. I gained points, which is more than 1 sigma of statistical distribution. My average IQ increased by more than 1 sigma i. Before Lumosity my best IQ result was , now I scored from the first attempt IT IS a statistically significant result! Especially I notice the improvement in memory and flexibility, which were originally poorly developed for some reason.
But certainly to increase takes quite a bit of repetitions, much more than for to gain. Most criticism of Lumosity reminds me the criticism of dumbbells or jogging by a lazy fat-ass person. A friend of mine is a professional online poker player who makes way more money than an average person. His overall BPI has cracked recently, and he plays like hell, saying that Lumosity helps him a loot in his activities. Dear Arkadiy, A PhD in physics and a scientific manager might know that a sample of one adds up to a sample of one. That would make them even more loot than your poker player friend is bound to lose.
Other ways of perhaps learning these things on line are free of charge. My own daily exercise has given my brain the ability to deduce that the earth is round. All best respects and good wishes to you. For most western people 80 bucks is almost nothing and you mention this amount about 10 times as if it really matters.
But the thing they make work. Of course, they are not unique, techniques are obvious, but implementation is excellent. Do I have any reasons to lie we already know, that for me 80 bucks is not the amount to worry about? Who is insulting whom? I mean get your point, but you are totally wrong. And just trying to reduce your own cognitive dissonance actively ignoring the facts, told to you by others. Same as dumbbells or treadmill.
Dear Arcadi If you have read the medical research papers quoted on the Lumosity site you will not find a mention of Lumosity in the reports and none that robustly demonstrate on decent sample sizes that brainpower can indubitably be accelerated permanently portrayed by Lumosity. These studies relate tin the main to our attempts to grapple with ADHD a matter more important, even, than how one spends money on liesure if your wealth permits you to throw money around at whim.
Certainly, dear Arcadii, i am greedy for a lot of things, including truth, the downfall of all charlatans and the assassination of the disastrous dictatorship of ignorance. Mainly, my greed centres on trying to make the world a better place in the very small ways one can. As I try to do here. This rarely makes people like you in the short term, as a lazy brain prefers beer to hard work..
The reasonable man lives at peace with the world as he finds it. The unreasonable chap seeks to change it. Therefore all progress is made by unreasonable men. He was a lot brighter than me, and he defined in this sentence the duty of a scientist and PhD. If what you believe is that the brain can learn, then I fully agree. Is it more useful and more pyschologically rewarding to pay a subscription to the Humanist Association, or to send the money to an educational charity in India? For me, that is the question, though you are free, one hopes, to ask any question you like, of course, in any forum you like, except in China.
They all could, of course, be right or wrong. Good,and sturdily tested evidence just helps some to decide. I live, and occasionally learn when to shut up! Billions once would once have liked to believed the following because they wanted to, but I have not seen the naked truth of the advertised claims:.
Hitler had only got one ball Himmler was somewhat similar But poor old Goebbels had no balls at all. Dear Arkadiy I will certainly concede one thing with the most sincere apology. My unLumossiferous brain repeatedly spells your name incorrectly; So sorry. Exercise Your Brain — http: Where is the reliable evidence to support these amazing claims?
This ad appeared over my Gmail today. Similarly, my wife recently got an email offering to enlarge her penis and within minutes I got an email to my very male actual name offering to remodel my vagina,.
We live in a world where it is quite important to be critical of the messages we get. Do please, anyone, send me its contacts details! I respect your right for an independent opinion. But why do you make such general conclusions? Well, criticize the paper. If nobody knows, why should you?
Did you conduct a proper research? If you would have had 10, game plays completed within a year and would show some figures of your performance and progress, than your article would have some value and would be close to truth. Or, what is better, you would also had a group of at least 10 the same persistent and dedicated people doing the same. Not more, not less. Only because they are to lazy or passive to get more and more repetitions.
The same, as any other learning. Repetitions are one of the basic tools to make our brain learn. What is good about Lumosity, it helps you to learn stuff faster with less repetitions. With Lumosity or any other similar activity you teach the brain to learn better. Lumosity is just a very convenient tool for doing so and tracking progress. I hope you will take the trouble to reply to the questions above. But in any case I stop arguing with Internet here. It is always wrong in some point. In both the private industry and public services and in positions ranging from CEO jobs to Management Consultancy.
So, i am deeply concerned with the way the world has come to swallow crap by being persuaded to purchase crap by crap marketers who cannot see that the long term growth of their businesses depends on delivering excellent long term benefits to customers. We have all managed to abuse the brilliance of computers very often to obscure the negatives and exaggerate the merits of many poor products and services this way by exploiting the inarticulate.
Try volunteering at Citizens Advice to see vividly how debt cases do actually arise, as contrasted with the public imagery of evil wastrels. I would be wholly delighted to pay ten times over for Lumosity, were it effectual, My last brain scan was not good. Time is short for me to waste it. In another area, it pains me very greatly to see a man who went out and murdered 70 young people whom he did not know because he felt he was promoting good.
This decision means that we will not be devoting to psychopathic conditions the research efforts that we would to what we see as medical problems like cancer or schizophrenia to combat their effects, So it is the worst possible decision for those who have been through the Hitler and Stalin eras of genocidal pscychopathic brute force murder which continues to be the disorder that has left billions of young corpses steeping the history books and the present day military medics with congealing blood all over them.
We need to organise to care for the general long term good. I have tried to answer all your questions here and thank you most sincerely for discussing the issues with me, as I see them and as you see them. Good luck,and good science in your career, dear Arkadiy. But it is still an empty block of text. How would you explain my progress?
It is obvious, that improvement is caused by the training, and this training caused similar improvement in a different area, thus allowing to assume, that the skills are transferable. I observed very similar results among my friends, to whom I gave Lumosity subscription as presents. Is it own experience, independent research, or does Lumosity obviously breaks some neuro-biological, psychological or any other fundamental laws of nature? Hitler, Goebbels, Norwegian Shooter, Stalin have got absolutely nothing to do with this. Only statistics and experiments matter. We should study why some people are sometimes evil far more than we do if we wish to avoid war, for example.
We should mind about how people delude themselves, Therefore. I have pursued a clear line of coherent and connected debate, The earth really is not flat,you know,my dear friend. The role of the scientist is to try and help humans to separate fact from fiction. Is the relevance now clear?
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Thank you for your views and all best wishes. In other words, you feel yourself free or even committed due to some high-minded mission to keep pushing your unsubstantiated claims towards Lumosity, because the first started to claim high efficiency without proper basis. They started it first! If you are really interested, just search Pubmed for relevant scientific papers. I do agree, they are way too aggressive with promoting their product, but even here they are very careful in their wording.
Of course it is impossible to stop ageing at cell level, everyone will die some day, because it is a basis. After the body naturally and continuously degrades. Lean mass, maximum heart rate, brain performance as by itself and as a result of the body degradation. However it is possible to a certain extent to compensate this decline by persistent training of both body muscles, cardiovascular system by physical exercise and mind which basically directly affects brain by brushing up existing complex skills as well as acquiring totally new skills.
By doing the above properly from the early age one can extent the active age period by the order of ten years, not to say that the quality of living and well-being will be higher compared to passively ageing people. Intelligence and satisfactory physical performance will last longer. It is not my wishful thinking, try to work with literature and you will see, that I am correct.
Basically it is about nothing. And I again repeat my question, what can you say about 1 sigma improvement of IQ after enormous Lumosity training with similar gain? I am delighted that you personally feel you are getting something, presumably an enduring something ,out of Lumosity though there is, as you say, no solid evidence that anyone else would find any enduring value from expenditure on it.
Have you read the summary of many research papers feature that is on the site? It says no improvement has been found. As to your scores, I am very happy that you are happy with them. That is also an arena fraught with anomalous examples of bright achievers who got low scores and dim non achievers who got high ones. Whatever turns you and manpower services on… as they say. And that you agree that they have poorly done inconclusive research results. Best wishes and thank you for replying. I have no doubt at all that you will gain the maximum scores, i hope partly through your encounter with the invigorating effects of this discussion!
I think i will send it to the campaign to outlaw bottled water. Most scientists do fall into this trap at some point. I personally cant explain why Nature should publish such a terribly tailored research results, unless they got paid for that. No matter many much people you use for the research. Or, similarly, that postgraduate study will not make a PhD, based on 1. Everything takes TIME and repetitions. So Lumositys marketing department should be careful with what they say and claim, so as you.
Because subjects are not persistent enough. I made quite a bit of gifts of 1-year accounts to my friends who I expected to be interested and going to work hard, and everyone show significant improvement after several thousand games played. And they do not notice memory improvement or other improvements like faster reading, better focus etc. I can at this moment say only qualitatively, but a lower threshold of attaining really fast results is about game plays a month or more for the first several month and then at least game plays depending on personal endurance, cause playing very close to the limit is becoming quite demanding, only then, when playing many-many times at the limit.
I wont take results of any research of Lumosity efficiency seriously, unless the will be or more subjects in a examined group, who accumulate 15, Lumosity Points or more within 1 year playing daily that will require about 1 hour a day. And another group of in a control group who will play ordinary video games and solve cross-word puzzles for an equivalent time. Of course there must be standardized procedure of testing as well as other activities of subjects, such as nourishing, physical activity, sleep etc….
Further more, unless you show me the results of such research with proper statistical analysis, you certainly can not make any conclusions of whether Lumosity works or not, whether it is evil, or not. I mean of course you can and you are free to do so, but be ready that you are not going to be taken seriously. Most of your statements are are just demagogy, and it is very difficult to get any straight and short answer without referencing to unrelated facts or odious historical figures.
You are allowed to make a 3 days trial account and if you are smart, greedy and motivated enough you can extend this free period effectively without limitatoon. Arkadiy,, Your English is excellent and often has fewer errors than mine despite my long forgotten Oxford language degree course. It is a very awkward language to learn and its speakers are far too unwilling to learn other languages.
One of the few things i have done right is to have mercilessly promoted physical exercise as the preferred treatment for depression over pyscho-active pharmaceuticals, So we are very much on net in frustration at our inability to find ways of motivating people to exercise daily vigorously, which has had by far the best effect on my brain function of any activity I have done.
The clients i have worked with, about 60 of them, have all measurably improved through exercise as the only variable, some having had complete recoveries. So I greatly applaud your dedicated enthusiasm to help others.. Uncertainty is a central fact of life, and the insecurity it engenders is the greatest cause of stress, say the psychologists. Sorting myth from the real and the true has never been easy, as the thousands of uniquely all powerful mythical exclusive Gods we fear illustrates.
Many have been murdered because science has not yet won all the minds and hearts it needs to. Syria is the present most obvious sufferer. I would like to point out something extremely basic and the premise for one of the authors main arguements. I asked a 7 year old what the problem with this sentance was. This artical is poorly written, poorly backed, slanderous and has 0 credibility. Single sided defamation…this author should apply for a gossip column.
Does your son think Lumosity will delay him aging, as the ads promise? That is what they would like you to believe, John. How much younger are you having bought it and used it? Kerin Gedge, keep on training, and you will see real improvement in month. Just try to play at least games a month. Truth is not a relative business.
It was not ever been possible and hardly will in future. However, brain games can compensate cognitive decline related to age to a great extent. And which you, for some reason, do not want to give up despite of pretty good arguments in support of Lumosity. But, well, keep on insisting in impossibility of becoming younger Captain Obvious. Dear Arkady Good luck! Morality in advertising matters to some people more than you imagine! If morality matters to some people, keep the morality while fighting for it. In other words, be more certain in your claims then. HOWEVER, the way the position of the product on the market is not entirely true and is based on some verbal exaggeration of positive features of the product.
It is not true, because it works. Dear Chap We are training our brains every day we are alive. Now I am sorry, but that is an end to my efforts to distinguish between science and propaganda. To me it matters, to you it does not. Well most of us do not train brain in daily life properly… The same as with muscles and cardiovascular system. But anyway, we can conclude from the above, that: False propaganda is bad and immoral. Dear Akadiy It is important not to attribute to others things that they have not said. That is not scientific, nor is it useful debate. This is my very last word.
It is not FREE after a trial sample. Yes, for some certain period of time and with limited features. But their game library is perfect, includes already 39 games and contiguously expanding. And they develop really motivating and brain-twisting exercise games, way more useful, than senseless cross-word puzzles and the like. And it seems to me, that due to this reason you keep getting to the last detail. I began reading this long, drawn out string of comments looking to get a better perspective on Lumosity.
But it certainly has a lot of people discussing it, trying to prove their stance on it, or disprove everyone else. I suppose anything that gets your brain going can be beneficial to your mental accuity hope I spelled that right So good job Lumosity, not sure if the science behind it is entirely accurate, but youve certainly sparked a lot of conversation in this matter. And in doing so, improved my mental focus for a short time. Participate in online discussions!
I dont need a gimmick, never underestimate the power of hard work. If you want to learn, knuckle down and learn. If you want to be a better human being, spend less time isolated in front of a computer screen playing silly games, and more time interacting with other human beings. If you want to read better, read more! Its really that simple, at least in my simple minded way of looking at things. I say hogwash on the stochastic article.
I did very similar computer games for increasing reading speed in law school. Those case books are thick! I doubled my reading speed and more. The games had visual field, awareness, and other tasks very similar to Lumosity. Also, when playing Lumosity, you can feel that your brain is learning different strategies and that experience translates into life. It translates to daily life right away. Do you mind if I quote a couple of your articles as long as I provide credit and sources back to your site? My blog is in the exact same niche as yours and my users would really benefit from some of the information you present here.
Please let me know if this ok with you. Hi, I do think this is a great web site. Money and freedom is the best way to change, may you be rich and continue to guide other people. I want to support what Microglia a psychologist says. The author of this blog is an uninformed writer who does not know how to research before publishing. I am a psychiatrist who treats Alzheimer patients and publishes in peer-reviewed journals. This is why many respondents, listed above, have reported successes with video games as long as they have the escalating difficulty component. The problem with video games is they lack the control for stimulating each center of the brain.
This is what Lumosity attempts. Great blog you have here.. I really appreciate individuals like you! Hey there are using WordPress for your site platform? Do you require any coding knowledge to make your own blog? Any help would be really appreciated! Having read this I thought it was rather enlightening. I appreciate you finding the time and effort to put this content together.
I once again find myself spending a lot of time both reading and commenting. Richard Using your brain does train it. It is how we learn. They have not done their homework. There are plenty of free brain exercise programmes available to anyone who Googles for them. The Lumosity site charges money and is advertising the promise of Anti Ageing.
If its product has this property where is their reliable, well conducted research to support their claims? That is what this discussion is about. But, scientists, even psychiatrists, normally prefer to form conclusions and base recommendations on sound science. This outfit is too lazy to support its claims soundly as it is aware that gullible consumers are not in short supply.
Check out the page with pirated Lumosity games. Also some advanced games, which require results from previous game plays, are also useless to progress, since pirated ones do not save previous results. However, you can challenge yourself with the most of them and check if it works or not. This general comment may or may not seem to readers of this blog to throw light on the discussion. IE nonetheless is the marketplace chief and a large component to folks will leave out your excellent writing due to this problem.
The amount of fake-positive comments coming from the Luminosity camp is both glaringly obvious and damningly telling. Dude, can you track back commenter IPs and see where the most blatant ones originate? Now THAT would make a good story! A few things about Lumositys claims to increase memory and attention: It is true that brain training games may produce changes in gray matter, there is a body of mid s literature on this, but its long term effects and implications for function in basic cognitive performance is debatable, right? Discounting this, the best studies that would place lumosity over any other form of brain training e.
Tetris would be those studies that explicitly use Lumosity to assess basic metrics of cognitive performance. The first of these has a serious conflict of interest: I dont think this is a good source. The second of these, published in Nuerophyscological Rehab, actually tests number sense, attention, etc. It is a before and after experiment with only 16 participants, and it does NOT include a control group!! The researchers do acknowledge this limitation in their paper.
This is problematic for two reasons. First, the finding that lumosity resulted in clinically significant increases in test taking may just be the result of training alone. Second, as we are making comparisons with a treatment group that is susceptible to problems with mathematical sense in general, the findings may represent a regression to mean computation, etc.
So lumosity is making very inflated claims about its importance, relative to say super mario bros. Lumosity could do some decent research at modest cost if it were serious. This topic really sucks, I got no words anymore after reading updates for a while. Some people are just hopelessly stubborn, if not to say more. And not the Lumosity, nor Tetris can help here. I proceed on the notion that they have come from the same person long-haired liberal , but if not, they are all from a like mind: You simply can not do it.
There is nothing man can devise that will elevate you to his level. Dear Leo Thank you very much for your heartfelt abuse. You have only made eight errors of fact in one paragraph, well done! But you did absolutely get right the fact that I am a lot smarter than you. This view I have repeated yet again here on this site for those who actually like to read what people say on it, before they indolently misrepresent the views of others.
Do please try to keep up with the rest of the class. All best wishes Nuffin. I do see your problem, dear Arkadiy, but since I have only done the free trial part of Lumosity, I fear I may also be trapped for life in indescribable unsubsrcribinability. Fortunately I am possibly a little older than you may be, so I shall, most likely, be released sooner than you are.
This is not certain, of course, because, as you tell us you are a Scientist in your work, you will be aware that we have insufficient data to be sure of this. However, were you to use the part of your body somewhat, when you are erect, of course, above your anal passage, which latter appears to preoccupy you, you might find the brains to escape from this site, whereas I, sadly, will be here for years, caring for the less fortunate.
This piece of writing will assist the internet visitors for building up new web site or even a weblog from start to end. Sadly, I will also defend Luminosity. Just stretching your brain, however slightly, will improve it. When I say stretching your brain, I mean using, not stretching it, but it is a good metaphor in this case. Whats more, 20 people, while small, is still rectifiable. For Example, lets take Bob and Joe. Same Job, same family, same race, etc. Now put one on Crosswords, and one on Luminosity. You have the control and the tester. Aside from this fact, I can personally say that any brain-helping game I have played has helped me.
Now I will allow for a weakness to be seen: My brain is rated different enough by the school system to merit a new top level in some tests for my area. Not because I am smarter, but because I am differently wired than most. Using muscles is good for them. How much younger it makes you is the stuff of bogus advertising claim. This is a model piece of medical research offered to the lovely advertising folk at Lumosity as a seasonal gesture of some sort;. Everything wear out eventually. Speeding up heart not make you live longer; it like saying you extend life of car by driving faster.
Want to live longer? Should I reduce my alcohol intake? Wine made from fruit. Brandy distilled wine, that mean they take water out of fruity bit so you get even more of goodness that way. Beer also made of grain. Well, if you have body and you have fat, your ratio one to one. If you have two body, your ratio two to one. What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program? Food fried in vegetable oil. How getting more vegetable be bad?
Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle? When you exercise muscle, it get bigger. You should only be doing sit-up if you want bigger stomach. Is chocolate bad for me? It best feel-good food around! Is swimming good for your figure?
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If swimming good for figure, explain whale to me. Is getting in shape important for my lifestyle? Well… I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Brits. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than British people. Everyone quotes all these studies and how they say this or that.
I shake my head at those of you who are persuaded by opinion and not by the highest level of evidence known to us today — Randomized Controlled Trials. The example I gave is untrue. No really, I made it up just now. I disagree because I. ANY health claim that is not supported by decently conducted published research is highly suspect until the claimants do their home work and make it available for public scrutiny. Usually the media will only feature conclusions, but not the research results that have led to them.
This is a real sin of lazy editors and writers and creates space for crooks to claim lies as truth. Actually, Michael Scanlon does have published research in some prestigious neuropsych journals. A quick psychology database search turned up two articles in which he was 3rd authorship. Material-dependent and material-independent selection processes in the frontal and parietal lobes: An event-related fMRI investigation of response competition.
Claims such as to fight ageing from exercise type products are likely to arouse negative incredulity in some potential customers, and the use of the words brain exercise, rather brain training, would be more persuasive to most purchasers. The results could show that credulity matters more than the apparently very dramatic nature of a claim?. Daniel Kish I guess you comment is about the introductory item on this blog and is not directed to me. There are a lot of comments on this article posted after January … the original article appears to have been posted on February 26, I suggest reading up on Samuel Renshaw and the application of his work during World War 2.
Some of the Lumosity training reminds me of this earlier concept. Also worth checking out is Harry Kahne. Will you please drop me a e-mail? The keyword is thinking hard. I am one of the people that experienced a great and astonishing improvement in all areas after using luminosity. I was convinced that I had the early stages of dementia, and it was so scary because I have always been a highly intelligent person. When I saw the advertisement I tried it immediately and used it for a long time and I got my memory function back!! I recommend it to everyone of all ages, even let my kids do it for the attention games, so many kids need it!
Ok, so I understand that it most probably have zero effect on your brain capability. But I think it still might be beneficial in some ways. I have no idea if psychologist had any help with the nightmares, but it did help me a lot — from one of the worst students in a class I became the second best in my school. Not that I became smarted, but motivated.
During those visits my doctor would always take lot of tests to analyze me. Surprisingly, I was always told I did exceptionally well, that I had really high IQ and things like that. I guess that boosted my confidence which in turn helped in school. So Lumosity, as I read in many comments, makes people feel they are getting smarter. It helps to boost your confidence. So I think it might be helpful in some way for those who believe in it.
Unfortunately I am far from being best in my school these days, I got too lazy. Lumosity does just that, the same as some video games, or other stuff. What I found is that if you use Lumosity you can get some benefits. So I say, if it works for some, then it should work for anyone. I agree that any exercises are good for your brain. Outside of that, you can get the same type of training free on any smartphone app, crossword puzzle, video games like tetris or even Lego Blocks! Websites like lumosity prey on people who want to take the easy way out for a cheap buck while they make millions and you walk away with what????
Knowing how to identify an out of place bird? I personally found Lumosity to only be medium difficulty, I use Anki and Dual N-Back instead, which are high difficulty. I think without mental exercise, you lose it. And it would only make sense that the harder the exercise, the better. Crosswords are easy, Lumosity medium, and N-Back hard.
Thank you for this post. I just want to give you a big thumbs up for your excellent information you have right here on this post. I am returning to your blog for more soon. I guess people want to be sold wonderful shortcuts. The long way round can seem very unattractive, but the more that people commit to genuine forms of thinking, the easier it becomes for everyone. I guess the trend is for people to believe that logic has a motivation of its own, as if it makes sense on its own; to just forget your motivations and pretend that you can do something for its own sake.
This is no different than a college…. Go pick up a copy of Tetris Anniversary or Call of Duty. Theres a sucker born every minute I guess. Damn they even got research to back it up! And its from the internet so it must be legit. So read a book, take a class, study something, do some crossword puzzles. So it makes sense that they got the results that they did. But I do see how it could help with mental sharpness for skills directly related to the games — such as adding numbers or thinking of words quickly.
Perhaps they should include a timed crossword puzzle, to combine the time pressure with a more traditional word-hunting activity? To the person above me who mentioned the nun study, there was also likely a selection bias. Women who choose an extreme life like that may be at the extreme end of the normal distribution anyway, and therefore would be more likely to have a tendency toward overall better health than the average person.
It would be hard to say if taking classes was responsible for protecting their brains, or if the natural acuity of their minds made it possible for them to take advanced courses late into life. So basically he is criticizing learning? Because to get good at doing math you have to repeatedly do it, and as you progress you get better at it.
Thats basically how everything in life works. I have used lumosity for about 2 weeks and noticed a small improvement. In my everyday life, not on the scores on the website. I actually started out higher in the first few days when the games are at the easy level. My score dropped and then started going up as I worked at it more. After 2 weeks I am back to the score I had when I started and making more progress.
I also knew going into it that I had some working memory issues that needed some work. As far as the comments that you can do other things for free. You could also just do push-ups and sit-ups at home for free, instead of going to and paying for a gym. You go to the gym for a richer experience with more variety in a place that is focused on exercising. The same reasons apply to brain training. I usually put more value on the comments in any article I read online.
I have also found them to be more useful in this case as well. As others have said. Well, it seems to me that this would be a relatively easy thing to test for. Play through the games the right way, then on a different account and play through the games the complete wrong way. You definitely get better at playing some of the games, up to a point. You eventually plateau though, and then your improvement at the games should go up slowly and consistently. I estimate that you could become acclimated to all of the games in about months with 10 games per day.
This could just be me settling into using an online to-do list Astrid , though. So in summary… I do seem mentally sharper than I was three weeks ago.
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I have played games a total of times. Some games have rising difficulty levels and you will need to get through the first easiest levels so you can even achieve your highest scores on a later play-through. This ceases to be an issue once you are familiar with every game, but it is a minor annoyance. You can play them on lumosity, playstation, or on your kitchen table.
The outcome is the same. As for increasing your mental capacity, you must learn something of relative difficulty over an extended period of time. I liked the angry style this article is written in, but the thesis presented is complete garbage. Just try playing these kinds of games and you will quickly realize that there is value to at least some of them.
Fluid intelligence is a rough composite of many different characteristics. Seriously, Stochastic Man, aggressive debunking is fun, I like your writing, and I love the Silverberg book that your name is based on, but your article was clearly written to allow you to posture. For the positive comments about lumosity, here is the answer for why it works: Some have the scheme well thought to stop these games.
They play with your mind to see what your limits. They can blame these games as often as they like, primarily a psychologist for children would use the same method as happen to me. This articles are not even of the biggest scientific websites like Scientific American sinse the last year. Do you use Twitter? After using Lumosity for a couple of months I began to consistently win at my monthly scrabble games where up to eight of us play two games.
I became noticeably quicker as well. Two of the others began Lumosity and they too lifted their game considerably. I have been playing Lumosity for a year now and while I feel my attention while driving has improved placebo? I have not noticed an improvement in my memory despite reaching the top percentile in Lumosity.
You people are taking this way out of context. Obviously using your brain is the only way to increase your mental capacity. Who the hell said that Luminosity was going to make you the next Einstein? Just like lifting weights has a visible impact on your muscle mass, using your brain to complete cognitive tasks are obviously going to expand your mind. Do your self a favor and curb stomp your pessimism so you can actually live a half decent life and possibly increase your mental awareness.
Something people in this day and age drastically need. Well I tried it — and enjoyed it. As for those who say you can only get better at the way you play — that makes no sense to me. The method of play is clicking a button — there is no improved skill in that concept unless you have to keep clicking different buttons and over time you become more accustomed to finding the buttons faster or where the buttons are. For the few games I played — the keys were always the same — but over time I got better at the game — so something is obviously improving and its not my ability of clicking — its something going on in my mind that allows me to complete a decision quicker.
I am not becoming used to the game — but becoming better at figuring out the answer. Which is what Lumosity promised me — or which is what I saw when I viewed the ad. Do they say using there product will or do they say can? In my understanding of the English language they are stating something is possible but not guaranteed so that is not false is it?
There have been comments about defying age, over and over and over and over — but surely we are all smart enough to read that what they are saying is that age is both physical and mental — although physical is greatly affected by ones mental state — so keeping the mind fit can actually have a positive effect or is it affect anyway — on ones physical being — so again — are they claiming something that is false by saying exercising ones mind can reduce aging?
Surely he who says they are lying is not taking them literally by thinking they are saying they claim you will grow younger — although — in essence you will if you brain activity returns to a level that it was when you were younger — so technically you are fighting age??
They are not selling new technologies — or saying its their evidence or studies that they have done that is why they are offering this service — its just all part of the package — they are pushing a good idea — in a easy to use interface and offering extras like tracking and a competitive feel to it so you want to improve — from what I have read here. I know what the answer is for me. I am glad a company has brought games like this to my attention — I think there is a pun in there somewhere. The vice president has a doctorate from Berkeley, on top of an MBA. Three of the members of the team have PhDs another is a doctorate candidate.
Various research have demonstrated that playing RTS video games such as starcraft of Age of empires, improve the ability of players to make decisions, especially under pressure. You ought to at least try it. The website was also mentionned very favorably in articles published in reviews and journals such as: Just play the game for what it is.
I really am disgusted with you people that defend lumosity aside from those that say what it actually is: Why pay for something you can get for free in any other game around the internet? Consistent misspellings that is a common word to misspell in itself and poor grammar obviously shows why you were duped into paying for such a program as lumosity. I use the free version myself, and find nothing wrong with it, as with anything else online that is free and makes money off advertising.
Grow up and use your money wisely. Secondly — how did you learn to speak? You are an idiot for thinking that learning tasks over and over cant help you with other tasks. Are you saying that if I learnt how to make a chair — that I could not make a table, using the method in the building of the chair?. Perhaps you should go back to school. That is so ironic. This is a clear example — which you have so beautifully shown — of bad advertising and its effects.
And yes, I am lashing out at you for your senseless direct attack on thousands and more people that are simply trying something to enrich their lives — which is the complete opposite to any of the pathetic examples you compared us to.
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You have issues dude! You have some really good posts and I feel I would be a good asset.
I told you so Brain Games suck | ScienceBlogs
Please blast me an e-mail if interested. At that time, I was a very ordinary promoter at a small company, of course, I earned not much money which was just enough to support myself. It needs to be rushed to a medical facility which is capable of handling emergencies. Different from other girls, she did not wear the very sexy short dress and very high-heeled shoes, she only wore a white skirt, which suited her slim figure very much, and her hair was very straight, she had white and smooth skin, a pair of big eyes which could speak for her, I saw the unique charm in her.
Yeast Infection No More Book key formulation component is the 5 step system plan where not a single thing held back. I can't comment on the article because it's in a journal that my current employer doesn't have access to though we generally have very good journal access. Without some understanding of criteria for meta-data inclusion and the authors' metrics for success, I can't evaluate the findings.
Do you have access to the source article or are you just drawing your conclusions based on a press release? Congratulations on a prescient "Brain games don't do shit" Science, 6 February Which of course is not surprise, building on previous papers. Now, the problem seems to be and the same with the study you mention , is that we need a common taxonomy so we can all discuss something more intelligent than the equivalent of "cars don't work because they don't fly". Yes, of course more research is needed, and more transparency, and a common taxonomy we are mixing targeted cognitive enhancement with Alzheimer's prevention, which are separate animals , and better assessments.
But the point here is, there is already emerging evidence that for specific groups of people learning and using new tools seem to be better that what those people are doing today -namely, crossword puzzles. Have you perhaps seen any clinical trial or meta-analysis on the benefits of doing one more crossword puzzle for people who already have done 10, of them?
Anyway, we should all do a better job at separating reality from hope from hype - and there is a bit of the three. My counter to that would be that crosswords aren't marketed in the same way as brain training software. That said, I agree with your point that learning new tools may well be benefitial, irrespective of the inherent benefit in the tools themselves. I am interested in this industry and notice that it resembles the nutraceutical industry whereby there are few proper clinical trials to back the health claims at present.
One of the reasons might be that there are few products patentable which would have allowed the developer the time and also funds to invest in the trials needed to support the claims; the other reason might be that we only now start to have some tools to use to define clinical end points like using real time MRI to understand what are the mechanism of actions of those games. I agree that there should definitely be more trials in this area while keeping the elderly clearly informed about the latest findings. The active control group did not show statistically significant gains, the researchers found.
As we write new convincing data is being published, they just need some time for this I have been working in the brain fitness space since and we have come along way. There has been significant scientific studies over the last 5 years that illustrate how we can maintain and develop our cognitive skills through our lifespan.
Our company has started to launch pilots that provide more efficacy to our software. I truly believe the next 5 years will see a lot of positive developments in this area. First time browser - nice website. From somebody that's been in the trenches, good luck in the Hellmouth. IMHO, what the review is really saying is that there are no good studies done. Alas, this is the problem with more than a few papers. I've been out of the publishing game for a while, thankfully, but I was always astonished at the number of poorly designed trials done in the "peer-reviewed" journals that I was reading.
Brain games can entertain, as they often do with my daughter and I. A better tactic might be to not berate the games themselves, but berate the people marketing them beyond this capacity. Yeah, I'm in a well respected WM lab and have recently read over 20 studies involving adaptive-WM training like cogmed Its total garbage that does nothing but increase scores on simple span tasks.
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