“Brain Training” vs. Cogmed
How do you know which programs are legitimate and can actually help? This chart highlights some important differences between Cogmed and other brain training apps.
In the 1990's, neuroscientists realized that, unlike what had been commonly thought, the human brain keeps developing throughout life, making new neural connections and pruning old ones. They also discovered that, under the right conditions, the brain responds well to training, and can improve its capacity to process information and pay attention, even for people well past their middle age.
This gave rise to a whole range of programs, apps, and video games, claiming to “reduce your mental age” or “increase your intelligence." Some of them were widely used and appreciated by their users, but most of them had one thing in common: they only improved your performance on the specific games that users practiced, while those benefits rarely transferred to other, more useful tasks.
References:
1. As an example of such excessive claims, makers of popular “brain training” app were found to have deceived their users and were fined $2 000 000 in 2016 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-cracking-down-on-brain-training-games/
2. Research summarized here: https://download.cogmed.com/claims_and_evidence Cogmed is a registered trademark of Neural Assembly Int AB