YOUR DEVELOPMENThow common such errors are. Nearly two hundred healthy participants
aged between nineteen and sixty kept a diary of their lapses for a week,
clocking up a total of 1217 mistakes. The average was for 6.4 lapses a
week, with the most common kind being the sort that involves going
upstairs only to forget what you’ve gone there for.
It’s not all bad news. While the ability to think on our feet – what
psychologists call “fluid intelligence” – declines with age, general
knowledge and wisdom (“crystallized intelligence”) usually continues
Does brain training really work?
The evidence-base shows that the health of your brain can be
enhanced by keeping physically active, avoiding smoking and excess
alcohol, eating well, including plenty of vegetables and fish, and, of
course, by keeping your mind active – reading, completing cross-
word puzzles and learning new skills, such as how to play a musical
instrument. However, several commercial companies would also have
you believe that you can help maintain your mental sharpness by
purchasing and undertaking their “brain training” programmes. Market
leaders include Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo and
CogniFit, which is endorsed by prominent neuroscientist Professor
Susan Greenfield.
CogniFit has claimed that people aged over fifty who performed
their computer-based brain-training exercises (including tests of task
switching and dual tasking) for thirty minutes, three times a week for
three months, subsequently showed superior mental performance
compared with an age-matched control group who spent the same
amount of time playing standard computer games. The trouble is, the
science doesn’t match these grand claims.
In 2009, Which, the respected, impartial UK-based consumer-
rights group hired three leading scientists, including Chris Baird at
UCL, none of whom had any vested interest, to assess the evidence
for brain training. They concluded that proper scientific evidence
for the benefits of brain training is almost entirely lacking. Many of
the benefits claimed by these products can be achieved though
everyday activities such as leading an active social life and surfing
the web. Other improvements remain specific to the brain exercise
without applying to real life in any useful way. Another expert, Cindy
Lustig at the University of Michigan, thinks that past studies have also
shown that older people, who have most to gain from brain training
programmes, are actually the least likely to show any benefit. Her view
is that “training programs aren’t going to hurt you, and probably do
have some benefits ... but they aren’t going to turn an eighty-year-old
brain into a twenty-year-old one.”