Brain Fitness - Practical Effects

Practical Effects

A significant issue in brain fitness work has been establishing that brain training exercises have impacts on brain function that exist outside the context of the training task. For example, in the ACTIVE studies, subjects were trained only in one of these three modalities: speed of processing, reasoning, or memory. Subjects did not significantly improve in non-trained modalities.

Other studies, however, have looked at changes in tests of everyday function that occur after brain-based training. In a review of these studies, the following significant effects were noted. Improvements on speed of processing training tests were related to improvements in the Timed Instrumental Activities of Daily Living test (TIADL). Evidence of ceiling effects were also noted, indicating that subjects who were further below normal at the beginning of training had the largest expected gains. Further, the effect sizes may be related to customizing the training difficulty to the performance level of the trainee. Subjects trained with one training strategy, the Useful Field of View test (UFOV), showed significant improvements in an on-the-road driving test designed to evaluate driver response during potential dangerous situations. Specifically, subjects trained with UFOV made fewer dangerous maneuvers after training. In another study, the researchers have found that action video game experience is shown to improve trainees’ probabilistic inference. These results were established both in visual and auditory tasks, indicating generalization across modalities.