I disagree with the previous poster.
There are brain games here: http://www.cognitivelabs.com
Cheers
Do you have any authority to disagree? I am a little annoyed with wishful thinking of people with no proper background. If you don't have the education relevant to the topic, you should let the once who do speak. I know it seems simple when you know nothing about the brain. Ignorance breeds a kind of fallacious confidence. Everyone who starts out on the path of science has this kind of confidence that they know what they are talking about and than they get educated and the confidence vanishes.
Let me start with some fallacies.
1. Gray or white matter size correlates to function -- false(sometimes). Sometime it does, sometimes it doesn't. It is about the algorithms, and efficiency, not size. So when studies claim it increases gray matter, first ask where, and second ask why does it matter.
2. Improving one area of the brain will improve total function -- unbelievably false and is based on the idea that the brain is a kind of holistic machine - it is not. It is highly modularized and localized. The information is shared but there is no evidence that playing a music instrument would for example make you a better writer or reverse.
3. Working memory can improve with practice - false.
4. Long-term memory improves with memorizing things - false. Look instead into spaced repetition and related stuff.
5. It is worth spending your time doing something because it improves a certain function. False, because we are ignoring efficiency here. There are better and worse ways of doing it. Reading, writing and debating is far superior to any other people buy into.
6. The more activity in the certain brain area, the better it functions - false(sometimes). Sometimes it does, but very often it just means its running inefficiently.
There are exceptions and subtleties of course but they are far in between. By and large people are just believing what the corporation wants them to believe to sell the "cognition improving" toy. You are so much better of with nutrition, supplements, and the basics. People are just looking for an excuse to play video games and waist their time while justifying it with "it improves my brain". A convenient belief isn't it. Well guess what it is full of shit.
Edited by Eugene, 07 January 2010 - 07:03 PM.