Keep your brain active
Simon Brew tests games that exercise your mind
Back when I had luxuries such as a generous amount of hair on my head, and the occasional follicle that wasn’t permanently grey, I could look at an old class photo from my school days (a colour photograph, and we were allowed to wear long trousers) and still name around 90 per cent of the people in it.
As hair tumbled out and wrinkles appeared, that number dropped each time I looked at it. I reckon now, on a good day, I can get identify 50 per cent. I naturally did the only logical thing, and promptly binned the photo.
These changing abilities and capacities of our brain is a natural by-product of age. We gather so much information in it that it’s easy to lose things. Can computers help?
Brain-training software has been popular since Nintendo hit paydirt with the hugely popular 2006 game Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training (see screenshot below). It sold several million copies on the Nintendo DS, and spawned a host of imitators. Since then a multimillion pound industry has grown around claims that games don’t just exercise the grey matter, but can also delay the onset of dementia. And yet some of the evidence is patchy to say the least.
In this new column I’ll be putting the games, sites and apps that make these claims to the test, assessing whether they are no more than just a bit of fun (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
The Alzheimer’s Society website was a good place to start. Its research with King’s College London concluded that brain-training games have a positive impact. One game tested by volunteers was the Seesaw Challenge ( www.snipca. com/26428, see screenshot above right), which asks you to click whichever object you think is heaviest.
I’m not convinced it taught me anything though. After beating the game it tried to enrol in a study. This entire process took about 50 seconds. I opted to move on, but it’s still worth visiting the page to read some of the more detailed science behind the research.
As a beginner to brain training, I went hunting for something to measure what my abilities are like now. Which is when I stumbled on Brain Reflection ( www. brainmetrix.com/brain-reflection) on the educational website Brain Metrix. Like a lot of these exercises, it appears quite basic at first glance, but has you hammering your keyboard and mouse to death by the end.
Brain Reflection, according to the pompous blurb on the website, “invariably leads to inquiry into the human condition and the essence of humankind as a whole”. This time, I needed to hit start, look at a white box, then hit stop when the colour changed. Do this in under 0.2 seconds and my reaction would be ‘super fast’. I’m not sure I ever want to be described as ‘super’ anything, but I gave it a go. Turn one: 0.359 seconds Turn two: 0.337 seconds Turn 10: 0.349 seconds Turn 15: 0.371 seconds
Turn 20: I reset my router, because clearly the speed of my web connection was counting against me Turn 100: 0.414 seconds Turn 120: 0.503. In what was becoming a metaphor for my life, I began to appreciate that I’d peaked too soon.
My brain, its reaction, and my chances of being ‘super-fast’ at anything useful clearly need work. My journey down this particular rabbit hole will begin in earnest next issue. I’m fearful already.
I needed to hit start, look at a white box, then hit stop when the colour changed. Do it in under 0.2 seconds and I’d be ‘super fast’