Can brain-training games make you smarter?
You will certainly get better at the game. Whether you get better at anything else has been argued over in open letters and by a regulator.
▶ Start the storyYou will get better at the games, almost certainly. Whether you get better at anything else is where the evidence thins out. Brain training rests on a tempting analogy: cognitive abilities can be improved by exercising the brain, the way fitness is improved by exercising the body. Scientists ask a sharper question than whether training improves your score: do the benefits transfer to untrained tasks, or to general cognitive functioning?
One of the biggest tests was a six-week online study in which 11,430 participants trained several times a week on tasks designed to improve reasoning, memory, planning, visuospatial skills and attention. People improved on every trained task. But the researchers found no evidence of transfer to untrained tasks, even ones that were cognitively closely related.
11,430
Later reviews drew a ladder. A 2016 review of the studies cited by leading brain-training companies found extensive evidence of improvement on the trained tasks, less evidence for closely related tasks, and little for distantly related tasks or everyday cognitive performance. It also found that many studies had major design or analysis shortcomings. A meta-analysis of working-memory training reached a similar verdict: short-term, specific effects that do not generalise.
Step 1: The trained task
Extensive evidence of improvement
Step 2: Closely related tasks
Less evidence
Step 3: Distantly related tasks and everyday cognition
Little evidence
The business side got a reality check. In 2015 the US Federal Trade Commission sued sellers of brain-training products for deceptive advertising, including the company behind Lumosity. It found the marketing preyed on fears of age-related decline, suggesting the games could stave off memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer's disease, without scientific evidence. The company agreed to a $50 million settlement, reduced to $2 million.
This is not a closed case. In 2017 a US National Academies report on preventing cognitive decline and dementia found moderate-strength evidence for cognitive training. And when more than 70 scientists and then 133 others signed opposing letters in 2014, a later review suggested the split came partly from different standards for evaluating evidence.
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Recap
Getting better at a game is easy to show; getting better at something else is the hard part.
💡 A trick to remember it · Practising one sport makes you good at that sport, and the evidence suggests brain games work the same way.
Surprising fact · A six-week study of 11,430 people found improvement on every trained task and no evidence of transfer to untrained ones.
Sources (6)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (24 claims) cites at least one of these.
- [1]Brain training · Wikipedia
- [2]Putting brain training to the test (Owen et al., 2010) · Nature, via Europe PMC
- [3]Do Brain-Training Programs Work? (Simons et al., 2016) · Psychological Science in the Public Interest, via Europe PMC
- [4]Is working memory training effective? A meta-analytic review (Melby-Lervåg and Hulme) · Developmental Psychology, via Europe PMC
- [5]Transfer of learning · Wikipedia
- [6]Mnemonic Training Reshapes Brain Networks to Support Superior Memory (Dresler et al., 2017) · Neuron, via PubMed Central