Evaluating the Effectiveness of Commercial Brain Game Training with Working-Memory Tasks

J Cogn Enhanc https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-017-0053-0 Evaluating the Effectiveness of Commercial Brain Game Training with Working-Memory Tasks Tilo Strobach 1 & Lynn Huestegge 2 Received: 18 January 2017 / Accepted: 31 October 2017 # Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2017 Abstract Commercial brain games are home- and computerbased cognitive trainings that are industrially offered and promise to enhance cognitive functioning by repeating cognitive tasks. Despite compelling evidence for the effectiveness of cognitive trainings in various domains and populations, the assumption of brain games’ effects on people’s minds has been challenged. However, there are only very few attempts to systematically evaluate the effectiveness of such games under ecologically valid training conditions. To approach this gap in the literature, we applied commercially available training tasks assumed to tap into working memory updating and capacity. The effectiveness of this training was measured by utilizing pre- and post-tests in trained tasks (criterion tasks), untrained transfer tasks from the assumed training domains (near-transfer tasks), as well as from the domains processing speed, shifting, inhibition, reasoning, and self-reported cognitive failures (far-transfer tasks). Training as well as pre-posttests were completely administered home-based. In contrast to an active control group, a training group improved performance in the criterion tasks and near-transfer tasks. Improved performance was also evident in processing speed and shifting tasks (i.e., far-transfer tasks), but these improvements were not as conclusive as those in near-transfer tasks. Further, the number of reported cognitive failures was reduced in the training in contrast to the control group at post-test. Performance improvements were more pronounced for high- * Tilo Strobach 1 MSH Medical School Hamburg, Department of Psychology, Am Kaiserkai 1, 20457 Hamburg, Germany 2 Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany performing participants (i.e., magnification effects). In general, this study provides an evaluation of the effectiveness of a particular set of working-memory training tasks in an ecologically valid setting in the context of brain games. Keywords Commercial brain games . Cognitive training . Transfer, cognitive plasticity . Working memory Introduction BConsumers are told that playing brain games will make them smarter, more alert, and able to learn faster and better. … However, … compelling evidence of general and enduring positive effects on the people’s minds … has remained elusive.^ (A consensus on the brain training industry from the scientific community 2014) (see also Simons et al. 2016). Brain games, also referred to as brain training, are computer-based cognitive trainings that, broadly defined, aim to enhance a cognitive skill or general cognitive ability by repeating cognitive tasks over a circumscribed timeframe (Rabipour and Raz 2012). Lately, many commercial programs take advantage of this idea over the Internet, offering the comfort and privacy of home-based brain exercise, creating a billion dollar annual industry (Torous et al. 2016). However, there are only very few studies evaluating the effectiveness of commercial home-based cognitive trainings (1) in terms of performance improvements in contrast to a control procedure (see Schmiedek et al. 2010a, for the evaluation of the feasibility of a computer-based cognitive training), (2) under real-life training conditions via the Internet, and (3) in a wider population (for an example of a brain game evaluation exclusively in the elderly, see Nouchi et al. 2012). The present study aims to approach this gap in the literature. An evaluation of training under real-life conditions is required since it allows J Cogn Enhanc the evaluation of home-based cognitive trainings with high external validity. That is, real-life training conditions may enable the conclusion that these effects are generalizable to other implementations of computer-based cognitive trainings (Schmiedek 2016). Previous Studies on Computer-Based Cognitive Trainings In one of the few existing evaluations, the effectiveness of a computerized, home-based training was investigated using 49 tasks that were presented in game-based formats and were from the various cognitive domains speed of processing, attention, memory, flexibility, and problem solving (Hardy et al. 2015). The study demonstrated that this type of training, when compared with the effects of training of crossword puzzles, led to improvements in core cognitive abilities including speed of processing, working memory, and fluid reasoning. However, the authors of this study had a strong conflict of interest since they were employed by the company that offers the evaluated tasks (see also Nouchi et al. 2012). Further, this study does not allow pinpointing the training domain (or combination of training domains) that is critical for the improvements due to the study’s mix of 49 game-based tasks from different domains. A promising effort in pinpointing the critical training domain was made in a study evaluating the effectiveness of a computerized, home-based training in as many as 11,430 participants (Owen et al. 2010). Recruited among viewers of the BBC science program BBang goes the theory,^ participants were assigned to (1) an experimental group with training on the domains reasoning, planning, and problem solving; (2) an experimental group with training on the domains short-term memory, attention, visuospatial processing, and mathematics; as well as (3) a control group with training on answering knowledge questions. Effectiveness of the experimental procedures in contrast to the control procedure was assessed in a pre-post-test design including assessments before the start and after the end of these procedures, respectively. In pre- and post-tests, participants conducted four untrained transfer tasks tapping into (1) reasoning, (2) verbal short-term memory, (3) spatial working memory, and (4) paired-associates learning. In this context, effectiveness is referred to as improved performance in (a set of) untrained transfer tasks to ensure that the improvement is not limited to the trained tasks but generalizes to specific skills and even general cognitive abilities. The results showed that, although improvements were observed in every one of the cognitive tasks that were trained, no evidence was found for transfer effects to untrained tasks, even when trained and untrained tasks were closely related in terms of their underlying cognitive processes. Thus, this evaluation of a computerized, home-based cognitive training (i.e., brain games) showed no effectiveness and thus no positive effects of this type of training. So, is there no effectiveness of brain games to expect and is the mind immune to changes in cognitive processing with brain game experience? From (...truncated)