Solving puzzles only helps in solving puzzles

If you play sports, you know well how exercise develops strength, dexterity, and endurance. These are useful qualities in real life: you can lift a bag of potatoes with one hand, run to the 20th floor without an elevator, overtake the car by bicycle (the average speed of cars in Moscow is 24 km / h ). Body training really helps in real life.

What about brain training? It would seem that the same principle should work in the training of cognitive abilities. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

On the Internet and on television, one can often find advertisements for games, applications and courses for brain development, attention training, memory, etc. These are simple memorization, attention, and reaction speeds that are usually complicated with each level. In fact, the market for such applications already amounts to millions of dollars, and in the future it can grow to several billion, experts say , as the growing concern of aging citizens of the Earth for their mental health.

Even serious organizations like the American Association of Retirees are promoting programs like BrainHQby encouraging retirees to keep themselves in shape. Other companies like Gogmed, CogniFit, Posit Science, Lumos Labs offer games and exercises that supposedly develop brain abilities, improve academic performance, improve social life and help in their careers. Even Nintendo successfully distributes the Brain Age game, which supposedly “trains” the brain several minutes a day, improves blood flow in the brain, working memory, etc.

Such statements are found in marketing materials and often refer to research results that confirm the effectiveness of these programs. The only question is, what exactly are these programs effective in, do they improve brain performance in real tasks that are really important in school, work and everyday life?

In October 2014, the Stanford Longevity Center and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development published an open letter signed by an international group of more than 70 psychologists and neurologists. It challenges the claim that courses and games for brain development are a scientifically based means to reduce or reverse cognitive decline. ” In the letter, scientists note that in fact there is not a single scientific study that confirms the positive effect of puzzles in real life. In response to this, in December 2014, a group of 133 scientists and therapists published another open letterin which they claim the exact opposite: that there is a growing amount of research confirming that certain cognitive tasks can significantly improve cognitive functions. In the second letter, however, scientists repeated the thesis that statements about the benefits of brain puzzles "are often exaggerated and misleading."

Although the two groups of scientists agreed on something, but how did authoritative experts, having studied the same scientific research, come to the opposite conclusions about the effectiveness of brain exercises?

In 2016, a group of scientists and physicians from several universities and medical schools tried to explain this contradiction. They conducted a large meta-study in which they evaluated the methods for evaluating the effectiveness of popular puzzles and computer games, which are advertised as improving brain function. An 84-page article with the results was published in the October issue of the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest (doi: 10.1177 / 1529100616661983).

The authors studied in detail all the experiments listed in 374 scientific papers that are cited on one of the leading sites in this field. Cognitive Training Data. The above-mentioned open letters of scientists are published on this site and scientific works are listed that they cite in support of their points of view.

Analysis of the experiments showed that the disagreement in the interpretation of the results is explained by different standards in testing the effectiveness of these exercises. In particular, the analysis revealed “extensive evidence that performing brain training exercises improves results in performing these exercises , less evidence that they improve results in closely related tasks, and little evidence that they improve remotely related tasks or everyday mental activity” .

At the same time, none of the studies complied with all the necessary conditions for conducting a truly pure experiment, which allows us to draw unambiguous conclusions about the influence or absence of the influence of performing simple mental tasks on the effectiveness of everyday mental activity. In other words, all research in this area suffered from poor quality experiments.

The article published detailed recommendations for scientists, scientific sponsoring organizations and regulatory bodies on which rules should be followed in such experiments.

In January 2016, the US Federal Trade Commission finedLumosity for false advertising that exploits the fears of aging people regarding mental decline and states that playing exercises can resist memory loss, dementia and even Alzheimer's disease. Obviously, commercial firms are ready to interpret any scientific research in their favor and are not shy about advertising their programs and exercises for brain training. But the fact is that these puzzles are guaranteed to train only one ability: they improve a person’s ability to solve these puzzles. Just as repeated passing IQ tests improves the result in IQ tests, but does not increase IQ at all.

The authors of scientific work call “inadequate” statements that brain training leads to improved results in life, outside the scope of these exercises themselves. At the same time, exercises for the brain are unlikely to cause any harm, except for a small devastation of the wallet. True, scientists note that the time spent on these puzzles could be spent on something useful. For what? For example, quoting the authors of a published scientific article, on “learning things that can improve school performance (reading, improving knowledge and skills in mathematics, science and art), labor productivity (refreshing knowledge and standards in their professional field) or for any classes which are otherwise pleasant. ”

The best way to keep yourself in physical shape is a healthy diet and exercise. And the best way to keep your mind in good shape is to constantly test yourself, go out of your comfort zone and look for solutions to unusual problems.