Have you ever forgotten words during a conversation?? This is a mild deterioration in cognitive function that can develop into more serious, and then dementia. The reason for this is that some areas of the brain have not been used for years. This is exactly the problem that the creators of brain training want to solve.
In the 2010s, brain development became fashionable in the United States. Many companies rushed to train the brains of Americans. But in 2016 there was a high-profile case. Large company Lumosity received a $2 million fine for using unproven methods. The media attacked like vultures, but the market continued to grow.
But there are brain trainings with proven effectiveness. For example, BrainHQ. In addition to 30 team members, the Posit science developer company has 10 doctors of science on staff. They study five areas of the brain that decline with age. They use special games to provide the right stimuli in the right order and with the right timing. Thus, the brain does not deteriorate with age!
Adults aged 60 to 87 followed this program for an hour a day for eight to ten weeks. A total of 40-50 hours. Memory readings improved up to 40-60 years of age, PET scan showed no decrease in metabolism, which is typical for older people. Other people note improved cognitive skills, a 48% reduction in road accidents, and faster and better performance of everyday tasks. Also become 38% less depressed and feel more confident.
What is BrainHQ
BrainHQ has no plot, no good graphics, only harsh gameplay. “A game from scientists, these are not toys for you,” apparently, they think in Posit science.
BrainHQ is a collection of mini-games aimed at developing reaction, attention, memory, spatial orientation, intelligence and communication skills. Opens through a browser, so it’s available on both PCs and phones. Russian version available. But to pay you need a foreign card or PayPal with VPN.
Every day they offer to complete three or four mini-games out of 24. Basically, they offer new, more complicated versions of old ones or those that develop the player’s problematic cognitive skills. So for a long time, every day I was offered a mini-game to identify sounds, because I have a non-musical ear. And I saw the search for keys only once in a month.
When starting mini-games, after a short training, you will be asked to take a short test task, which will determine the level of cognitive skills. Depending on the results, the number of stars required for a comfortable game will be awarded. This test will appear before each mini-game launch. Past achievements will be taken into account.
The difficulty level of these games gradually increases. Stars are awarded for a series of correct answers. Stars increase difficulty. For incorrect answers, the difficulty is reduced, but stars are not taken away. Instead, more correct answers are required to recruit a new star. To complete the session you need to collect 10 stars (or 5 for the first launch).
After confidently receiving five stars (80% correct answers), a more complicated version will be offered. In the Attention to Detail mini-game, the player selects two identical ones from three butterflies or flowers in a fraction of a second. First they give colorful butterflies. In the more complicated version, the butterflies are the same color, but are distinguished by the pattern on the wings. Background may change. Or objects are located further from the center. Or they offer to find three identical butterflies out of five.
Show me what you saw
This is the largest group. They show an object for a very short time and you need to show this object. In some games the objects are similar, in others there are two objects, in others the objects move. Fourth, they show the original object once, and then show a number of other objects in order. The player presses a key when the object that was shown at the beginning is shown.
Objects can be very different: butterflies, birds, cars, road signs, faces, landscapes, GIFs and even sounds.
It’s strange that the developers divided them into different groups. For complex objects (for example, butterflies with the same color, but with a different pattern), the speed of the brain is responsible, and for a large distance between two objects, attention is responsible.
For a while
The tasks in this group are easy – determine whether the colors of two figures are the same, name the number, and the player looks to see if the number of symbols matches the inscription, correctly named the color of the inscription. Sometimes the tasks become more complicated: they show two numbers. If the numbers are written in text, then you need to choose a smaller number, if in numbers, then choose a larger one.
But these problems must be solved in a short time. And when you have a second or less, even a simple task can cause difficulties. Especially, it throws an error.
Memory games
These are already difficult games. At least for me. Show two cards in turn. They show the third and you need to determine whether it matches the first. The fourth must be compared with the second, the fifth with the third. That is, you need to keep in mind two independent numbers, suits, sounds and constantly change the sequence. It’s on the first star. Next you need to keep in mind a sequence of up to five independent objects. And all this for a while.
It’s a little easier to determine facts about a person from a photo. Show a photo of a person with his name and two random facts. For example, Patty loves to cook with her husband and loves yogurt. Then they show the photo again and you need to remember the facts about it from the three offered. More people show up on higher difficulties.
Orientation
And the last group – orientation games. That’s what the developers called them. I don’t know the mechanisms of orientation in space. But it seems more logical to me to build a location and send the player there. But apparently a game from scientists for $15 a month can’t be like a regular game for a dollar forever.
There are only two mini-games in the group. In the first, they show two Tetris figures (on high difficulties the figures have more than four pins) and ask if they are the same figures or mirrored ones. In the second, in a three by three field, two signs are shown in random fields. Then one of them is removed. Rotate, shift or mirror the field and ask where the second character should be.
Both seemed simple to me. I easily https://bingositesnotongamstop.co.uk/5-deposit-bingo/ get five stars there. But I have trouble with orientation. I have been living in my hometown of over a million people for more than thirty years. And I still have trouble understanding it. I know several popular places, but I don’t understand what’s between them. And if you send me into the forest, then I’ll get completely lost after a couple of hundred meters without paths. That is, orientation games improve orientation very little.
The same can be said about intelligence games. They’re just more complex variations of other games. Moving objects from the first group. Playing with cards. However, what intelligence is, everyone thinks in their own way when describing themselves.
Will it help in communication if you can show your face after it was shown a couple of seconds ago?? Well… maybe. But this is definitely not a sufficient condition. Regular tar currents will help much more with this. But this is actually a medieval method – if you want to learn something, then just repeat it over and over again.
The Face to Face mini-game might help. They show a person expressing a certain emotion. After this, the player must show another person with the same emotion.
Remembering facts about people is also useful. But the problem is that we recognize people using long-term memory. But will it help us that we remembered the fact 10 seconds after we learned it??!
A mini-game that trains what it says is "Target Hunter". The player is shown from three to seven independently moving objects. And then a couple more dozen. The player needs to follow the first group, and at the end of the exercise show the whole group.
We can simultaneously hold in our minds from three to seven independent objects. And this game helped me keep more objects in my mind at the same time.
BrainHQ really trains the brain. But only simple cognitive functions. Enough to keep your brain in good shape and prevent the worsening of age-related problems. Yes, and in everyday life skills can be useful to us. For example, I began to understand people with poor diction (that is, almost all people) noticeably better. Maybe more is not needed. Maybe all of our higher brain activity relies on simple cognitive functions. Drobyshevsky said that all our activities are the everyday life of a hunter-gatherer. But no matter what achievements I achieve in brain speed games, it’s still often only after some time that I figure out how to answer.
But "brain fitness" is supposed to make you smarter. Our daily life is much more complex and complex than mini-games. Therefore, I think that even though the game is useful, “brain fitness” is just marketing words. Higher mathematics or learning an unfamiliar language is more suitable for the title “brain fitness”.
But what BrainHQ does well with its marketing promises is confidence. Over time, I was offered such incredible tasks that if I had been asked earlier, I would have said that it was impossible. You yourself probably noticed in the examples.
This game is useful, although not a miracle. However, she tries too hard not to be entertainment.
Best comments
Quite an interesting topic you raised.
But as I read the text, I had several questions.
Have you ever forgotten words during a conversation?? This is a mild deterioration in cognitive function that can develop into more serious, and then dementia.
This is the first thing that catches your eye. What is this statement based on?? Are you talking about letology or neurological diseases?? Now, I would say, to state such things, also unfounded, is somewhat unethical in relation to the reader.
Can you provide research on this statement?? As far as I know, in a normal situation, the problem of forgetting words more often manifests itself due to stress.
Memory readings improved up to 40-60 years of age, PET scan showed no decrease in metabolism, which is typical for older people.
Here, too, I would like more facts about where these statements come from? These changes occurred in 100% of subjects? If not, what percentage??
BrainHQ has no plot, no good graphics, only harsh gameplay. “A game from scientists, these are not toys for you,” apparently, they think in Posit science.
This proposal gives the impression that you disagree. How do you think it would be worth designing such training games??
And the last group – orientation games. That’s what the developers called them. I don’t know the mechanisms of orientation in space. But it seems more logical to me to build a location and send the player there. But apparently a game from scientists for $15 a month can’t be like a regular game for a dollar forever.
Judging by the examples that you show, this is not about terrain orientation, but about spatial orientation.
No, at least read this article before you declare.
What are simple cognitive functions? And how difficult then??
This game is essentially a simulator. You stand on the treadmill and tell it, “I want to laugh for 5 minutes.”?
And the simulator is so damn useful, both for the average person and for those who are faced with certain diseases, and sometimes you have to restore brain function at an early age.
I do not agree that the game does not meet the definition of “brain fitness”. And I certainly don’t agree that higher mathematics or learning an unfamiliar language fits this definition better. Because the game is training on simple objects, aimed at strengthening basic functions, it does not require much time and effort. It is accessible and easy to use. Vysh. mat. and languages are certainly also useful, but this is the same as suggesting replacing push-ups with conventional pole vaults..
And in my opinion, it would be worth rejoicing that such solutions are finding ways to go beyond the boundaries of research institutions and be commercially implemented, and not blaming them for the fact that these are all just marketing words.
The idea is funny, but yes, there is more marketing than real benefit. The same social intelligence, without contact with real people who do everything their own way, does not grow much. Even if the contact occurs in the form of a game, the effect is already orders of magnitude higher than during single training. Moreover, some kind of EVE Online or, on the other hand, a heavy role-playing game, like Shadowrun, can just cover the entire spectrum declared here. There will be where to count, and where to use memory, long-term and short-term planning, intuitive decisions. All this in constant contact with people and periodic stress tests.
Thank you for the detailed answer.
1. Memory is a cognitive process. Cognitive processes decline with age. Deterioration leads to diseases in old age. Particularly for dementia. Dementia occurs, as you noticed, due to stress, bad habits, low physical activity, and poor diet. Well, the main thing the blog is about is low cognitive load.
I haven’t seen neuroscientists clearly state that forgetting words is a symptom that can develop into dementia. Forgetting words, of course, can be a symptom of this disease, among others, but a person may also begin to forget words due to an overabundance of information and fatigue after active mental activity, which in fact is exactly the opposite of your statement.
Hmm, why did you decide not to attach them to the blog right away??
4. How should such training games be designed?? Now there is a whole gaming industry. They clearly understand how to motivate a player, how to make it rain dopamine. That is, instead of forcing oneself to train by willpower, a person will happily run to train on his own. Instead, BraiHQ is as different from conventional entertainment as possible. For what? Because someone is ashamed to have fun? Especially in light of the fact that interest is important in training. I’ll write more about this next week.
I wouldn’t say there was any bias towards the concept of "fun" in this app. I assume that the developers had the goal of making this application accessible to a wide age range, so that, conditionally, our parents, and even grandmothers, would also find it easy and comfortable to play. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this is their main target audience.
Based on this, and from what you described earlier about the composition of the team and the percentage of scientists in it, I assume that the budget was not distributed in favor of the game designers, which is, in general, expected for such products.
However, with all this, as a simulator that is better compared with language applications than with 3 in a row, the application, in my opinion, coped with gamification and creating additional motivation.
Thanks for your comment. Now I’ll explain everything.
1. Memory is a cognitive process. Cognitive processes decline with age. Deterioration leads to diseases in old age. Particularly for dementia. Dementia occurs, as you noticed, due to stress, bad habits, low physical activity, and poor diet. Well, the main thing the blog is about is low cognitive load.
There are millions of information about this. It’s strange that you don’t know. I cannot provide medical research – I do not have a medical education. I can only throw something like this:
2. Norman Doidge wrote in his book “Brain Plasticity” about the fact that the brain is not used and consequently degrades. I also read about this in Kagermazova’s textbook on developmental psychology. Neither there nor there were links to studies.
3. All Posit science research is here:
4. How should such training games be designed?? Now there is a whole gaming industry. They clearly understand how to motivate a player, how to make it rain dopamine. That is, instead of forcing oneself to train by willpower, a person will happily run to train on his own. Instead, BraiHQ is as different from conventional entertainment as possible. For what? Because someone is ashamed to have fun? Especially in light of the fact that interest is important in training. I’ll write more about this next week.
5. Simple cognitive functions are contrasted with complex brain activity, GNI.
