20 replies to this topic

[cmorera]

(reposting from M&M forums)
http://v.mercola.com...ness-19437.aspx


Fun Way to Increase Your Brain Fitness

POSTED BY
Dr. Mercola
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Although physical exercise helps improve brain health, brain exercises are a great tool for developing or maintaining a mind like a steel-trap.

Lumosity.com is a new site offering a complete brain fitness program. Designed by neuroscientists, their program has been scientifically demonstrated to improve your memory, attention and processing speed.

The program consists of 30 sessions, each session consisting of three to five games, which automatically adapts to the difficulty best suited for your current abilities, getting more difficult as you go along. You can track your advancement and improvement as you go through the program.

Users of the program claim they have experienced clearer and quicker thinking, better memory retention of names and numbers, increased alertness, elevated mood and better concentration while on task.

For example, one game called Birdwatching is designed to improve your peripheral vision. This is an important ability in many everyday activities, such as driving, since having good peripheral vision is tied to a reduced likelihood of having an accident.

Lumosity.com

[macanizer]

726 on my first try at birdwatching thanks for sharing!

[luv2increase]

Those exercises are 'corny'. I use mybraintrainer everyday and love it. Within another week or so they will be adding mybraintrainer 2.0 which includes new exercises etc... How can you beat 4 months for $10? You can't!

[radical_tyro]

These exercises are pretty decent, and I'm glad they're free for now. I think that Big Brain Academy for the Nintendo DS is by far the best brain exercising game I've tried. It also just came out for the Wii, but I haven't tried that and I think I'd prefer stylus input and portability anyway.

[maestro949]

Develop a career where you use your brain every day.

[DukeNukem]

First try on the bird test = 2394 pts

A pretty clever, fun test.

[FunkOdyssey]

I think success on the bird test comes down to your knowledge of bird species names. I think a history of FPS gaming helped me considerably with clicking the correct location of the blinked bird icon, but hell if I know what type of bird this is:

_ _ N _ _ O _ _ L (off the top of my head example)

I have to question the legitimacy of the exercise as attention training when the score depends much more heavily on your ability to guess obscure bird names.

[the steve]

Yeah I thought guesing the bird names was kind of stupid as well.

Still, it's free and I'm doing the 30 sessions until I purchase MyBrainTrainer for 4 months

[DukeNukem]

Well, I'm no bird expert, so I had to get several letters before guessing each bird, and even guessed one wrong and lost some points...I guessed "mockingbird" for what turned out to be "hummingbird" after getting the "d" and "i"'s. And on one bird name, "loon" I had no idea until it was fully spelled out. I think I scored high on hitting the bulls-eye on the bird well each time--the closer you are to clicking the center of where the bird appears, the more points you get.

I took the next test with the hidden monsters and also scored really well, but can't remember it now. Then on the third test with the raindrops I was bored and quit about 60 seconds into it -- I hate that kind of simple arithmetic test.

[radical_tyro]

Develop a career where you use your brain every day.

Well yes that helps, but likely you're only using a very specific part of your brain. A main idea behind brain training is that performing simple tasks can stimulate your brain, often more than very difficult concentrated tasks. The brain game that started this boom was Brain Age for the Nintendo DS. You can go to their website to see very interesting brain activity plots when performing different activities. See http://www.brainage....ch/training.jsp. They show that performing rapid simple arithmetic or reading aloud actually yields more activity than solving a difficult math problem. I haven't looked up the original papers, but the research is supposed to be legit.

As far as lumosity goes, I am starting to feel like obtaining a high score is just a consequence of unlocking the next stages (you seem to get more points at higher stages/difficulty). Also I think an improved score is more likely to be caused by improving your skill and technique of the game, rather than improving your cognitive performance in ways that carry over to a wide variety of cognitive tasks. Just a thought.

[ahg984]

Develop a career where you use your brain every day.

Also I think an improved score is more likely to be caused by improving your skill and technique of the game, rather than improving your cognitive performance in ways that carry over to a wide variety of cognitive tasks. Just a thought.

Good point! This was one on my big concerns with the site, so I put it to the test using a crude method.

Monster Garden and Memory Match are two exercises given on the site for increasing spatial working memory. I started playing Monster Garden and got to the final level (Impossible). Then, I stopped playing Monster Garden and only played Memory Match for a few days (70 rounds in total). Then, I went back to Monster Garden and noticed a big improvement. I could easily navigate through the monsters (which I couldn't before).

My scores improved from 4000ish to 5000-6500.

SO maybe it does work. [thumb]

[ahg984]

I think success on the bird test comes down to your knowledge of bird species names.  I think a history of FPS gaming helped me considerably with clicking the correct location of the blinked bird icon, but hell if I know what type of bird this is:

_ _ N _ _ O _ _ L  (off the top of my head example)

I have to question the legitimacy of the exercise as attention training when the score depends much more heavily on your ability to guess obscure bird names.

Much more weight is given to capturing the bird and id'ing the letter than figuring out the bird name, especially in the later levels. For ex. in lvl 8, you get approx. 1500 points for catching the bird versus 150-200 for guessing the bird name correctly.

[luv2increase]

Good point! This was one on my big concerns with the site, so I put it to the test using a crude method.

Monster Garden and Memory Match are two exercises given on the site for increasing spatial working memory. I started playing Monster Garden and got to the final level (Impossible). Then, I stopped playing Monster Garden and only played Memory Match for a few days (70 rounds in total). Then, I went back to Monster Garden and noticed a big improvement. I could easily navigate through the monsters (which I couldn't before).

My scores improved from 4000ish to .

SO maybe it does work. [thumb]

SPAM

[luv2increase]

Much more weight is given to capturing the bird and id'ing the letter than figuring out the bird name, especially in the later levels. For ex. in lvl 8, you get approx. 1500 points for catching the bird versus 150-200 for guessing the bird name correctly.

Don't you love it when someone who's very first posts are in regard to a paid service.

[ahg984]

what the hell!

btw I am in no way affiliated with the site. It's also not a paid service. Why not check it out before you post?

[luv2increase]

what the hell!

btw I am in no way affiliated with the site. It's also not a paid service. Why not check it out before you post?

I have checked it out. If you've read my previous post up top, you'd notice that I said the games are 'corny'. Also, in awhile, one will have to pay to use it. They are just giving out free samples as many start up companies do for a variety of products/services.

[ahg984]

That's correct but the program is not very long. You can likely get through it before it becomes a paid product.
Of course, it is debatable whether the positive effects will last once you stop using it.

[ahg984]

I will repost the essence of my first post here.

Assume exercise A and B (which are very different) help with the same thing.

You do A to get a baseline score, practice B and then do A again to see if there was any improvement.

Any improvement wouldn't be because you got better 'playing the game.'

Of course, I am not claiming this is foolproof. There could be something common between A and B but it's unlikely if they are very different.

Bah i am done with this.

[dave31]

is 11430 on the raindrops any good?

[luv2increase]

is 11430 on the raindrops any good?

Absolutely not.

[cmorera]

is 11430 on the raindrops any good?

Absolutely not.

ouch