Results: 3125 individuals completed the survey and over half of these were under age 30. The survey was offered for a 2-week period in September 2015.
Respondents were paid 20 cents for completing each survey. There were no exclusion criteria to partake although internet access was required. Method: We conducted an online internet-based survey of the US population via mTurk regarding their use, experience, and perceptions of brain training apps. Given the high rates of smartphone ownership in those with internet access and the younger demographics, we chose to approach this question first with a general population survey that would capture primarily this demographic.
BRAIN TRAINING APPS DOWNLOAD
Little is known about why consumers choose to download these apps, how they use them, and what benefits they perceive. Find out more in this article and in the video below.Background: While clinical evidence for the efficacy of brain training remains in question, numerous smartphone applications (apps) already offer brain training directly to consumers. The research team are looking to recruit 200 healthy adults, aged 60 to 75, to take part in a paid study on cognitive training and brain stimulation. One of his current research projects is working to enhance cognition in people as they age. Specific interests are the mechanisms of attention and the efficacy of cognitive training and how it changes the brain to improve performance. Professor Dux leads a group that uses cutting edge techniques to study the cognitive and neural underpinnings of human information-processing capacity limitations in health and disease. So far, we know that training on a task certainly makes you better at that task, but whether such training gains generalise and, to what extent, is still very much unknown.ĪUTHOR: Professor Paul Dux is a psychologist and neuroscientist in the UQ School of Psychology. These are just four examples of many studies in this area, with many more to come. On the flipside, a recent study published in Neuropsychologia found that brain training does not generalise, even to very similar tasks and called into question the benefit of cognitive training beyond practice effects.Īnother study published in The Journal of Neuroscience found no evidence for the benefits of commercial brain training programs in decision-making behaviour or brain response, or for cognitive task performance beyond those specifically trained. The authors stated that larger, more controlled trials are needed to replicate and extend these findings.
BRAIN TRAINING APPS TRIAL
Similarly, a randomised controlled trial of cognitive training using a memory game on patients with a diagnosis of amnestic mild cognitive impairment concluded that episodic memory robustly improved. However, the authors said that due to testing over a short period of just four weeks they were unable to assess the long-term benefit of playing the brain training game. One study reported that a brain training game had a beneficial effect on cognitive processes, such as executive functions, working memory and processing speed, in healthy young adults.
Although, there have been a number of small-scale studies that have found mixed results. Right now there are no large-scale, pre-registered, clinical trials assessing the efficacy of brain training apps. Indeed, companies such as Lumosity have been fined by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) in the US for false advertising regarding the outcomes of their products. The alleged cognitive benefits of brain training tasks being transferred to other tasks that the users haven't been specifically trained for-but which engage the same psychological processes/brain regions-are yet to be established. There is currently much hype around brain training apps, which are being used by tens of millions of people worldwide.
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