Do ‘brain training’ games boost brain power?
You may have seen them advertised, you may even own one, but new research suggests that brain training games do not improve brain performance. The electronic games are frequently promoted as being capable of training and improving brain function, by giving a workout to the brain, but the largest ever study into their benefits has found little impact.The study followed 11,430 people, over a 6 week period, to assess the influence that regular use of brain games had on mental performance. The participants of the study did show signs of improvement at each of the games, but this improved performance was not shown to be transferable into other tasks. The improvements were solely due to repeated use of the games rather than any intellectual development. Participants showed no improvement in terms of general reasoning, memory, planning or visuospatial abilities, experts found.The study volunteers were asked to do brain training sessions for at least 10 minutes a day, three times a week, for 6
