Nintendo’s Brain Age doesn’t work, researcher says
By Andrew Heining | 01.26.09
A French researcher has disputed claims that Brain Age, a program for the handheld Nintendo DS video game system, can improve memory and mental acuity.
According to the Times of London, Alain Lieury, a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Rennes, has found that the use of “edutainment” titles made little difference in tests. His research tested 67 10-year-olds.
“That’s the age where you have the best chance of improvement,” Professor Lieury says. “If it doesn’t work on children, it won’t work on adults.” The children were split into four groups. The first two did a seven-week memory course on a Nintendo DS, the third did puzzles with pencils and paper, and the fourth just went to school as normal.
Researchers found that the two groups using the game system showed little significant improvement in memory tests. They did 19 percent better in math – but so did the pencil-and-paper group, followed by the “go to school as normal” group, with an 18 percent increase.
The finding seems to contradict a similar study from Scotland conducted on schoolkids last year. It found that use of the game increased math scores and boosted students’ standardized test performance – by as much as 50 percent.
The wildly popular game uses fast-paced simple math problems, word puzzles, currency conversion exercises, and memory tests to help users lower their “brain age.”
Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, the scientist on whose work the game is based, (and who has an in-game presence) has refused to pocket royalties for the game, and limits his own children’s video game playing time to one hour a week.
Professor Lieury’s recommendation for staying sharp: read, help children with homework, play sudoku (which is included in Brain Age 2), and watch documentaries instead of soap operas.
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2. Bob J | 01.26.09
Lets see, a unintelligent english professor, vs a very smart Japanese inventor. Lets see whos smarter. I put my money on the japanese guy because the japansese guy is always right!
4. Thomas M Demko | 01.27.09
Being objective about this article’s headline and content, I think the intelligent reader should pick out the fact that this study has an incredibly small subject group; only 67 children. You can draw very little conclusions if any at all from this experiment, simply due to the small group studied. A larger group and perhaps an adult group would persuade me into buying into this studies claims. Respect to Nintendo for their marketing genius.
5. Karen | 01.27.09
Just read a SharpBrains blog post that may add some light:
http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2009/01/27/nintendo-brain-age-training-vs-crossword-puzzles/
“As we have said before, Nintendo Brain Age and Brain Training should be seen as what they are: a game. And the construct of one’s having a “brain age” makes no sense.
Having said that, the researcher quoted then offers, out of the blue, one of the less accurate statements of our times:
“The study tested Nintendo’s claims on 67 ten-year-olds. “That’s the age where you have the best chance of improvement,” Professor Lieury said. “If it doesn’t work on children, it won’t work on adults.”
That hypothesis (that something won’t “work” on adults because it won’t “work” on kids) has already been tested and falsified.
In a couple of recent trials, discussed here, the same strategy game (Rise of Nations, a complex challenge for executive functions), played for the same number of hours (23) showed quite impressive (untrained) cognitive benefits in people over 60 - and no benefits in people in their 20s.
How can this be? Well, we often say that our brains need novelty, variety and challenge - and it should be obvious that those ingredients depend on who we are/ what we do. A crossword may well be new and challenging for a kid, but not for an older adult who has done a million already. A videogame can provide good challenge to an older adult - and probably not to the kid who already spends 5 hours a day playing them.”
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1. dan | 01.26.09
I think study was flawed and instead
should have used adults as subjects.
The game is advertised (and might even work)
as a way to re-claim lost braincells - something
that (most) school kids have yet to endure.
The study may not have found any improvements
in the group playing the game because they
simply haven’t hit the slump yet.
My 2c…
dan