
No gain from brain training - robg
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100420/full/4641111a.html
======
goodside
This paragraph from the original paper explains beautifully how little benefit
brain-training really provides:

"To illustrate the size of the transfer effects observed in this study,
consider the following representative example from the data. The increase in
the number of digits that could be remembered following training on tests
designed, at least in part, to improve memory (for example, in experimental
group 2) was three-hundredths of a digit. Assuming a linear relationship
between time spent training and improvement, it would take almost four years
of training to remember one extra digit. Moreover, the control group improved
by two-tenths of a digit, with no formal memory training at all."

This is far from the first study of its kind. People have been trying for
decades to find any sort of training task that can improve general cognitive
ability, and there is simply no evidence that one exists. Tests with
sufficiently high g-loading are virtually impervious to any form of
preparation or training. The closest anyone has ever come to finding one that
works is the discovery that the dual n-back task improves scores on Raven's
Progressive Matrices (which is very much the gold standard of g-loaded tests),
and that's highly suspect given that both n-back and RPM involve the very
idiosyncratic task of holding three-by-three matrices in working memory.

As important as discovering a general IQ-raising task would be to psychology,
there's nothing especially depressing about one not existing. Remember: _You
can still learn things._ All this research tells you is that if you want to
get good at some particular task, you have to train either at that task
specifically, or something that's in some way related to it. Playing Tetris,
memorizing chess openings, or practicing Bach's Goldberg Variations is simply
not going to help you become a better programmer. For that, _you need to
program_.

~~~
silentbicycle
> Playing Tetris, memorizing chess openings, or practicing Bach's Goldberg
> Variations is simply not going to help you become a better programmer. For
> that, you need to program.

That's leaving out the benefits from practicing general problem solving
skills, logical reasoning, analyzing design trade-offs, etc., though. You make
it sound like programming is all about remembering where to put the
semicolons!

Meditation also seems to have positive cognitive effects, though they probably
come from improved focus rather than intelligence.

~~~
goodside
"That's leaving out the benefits from practicing general problem solving
skills, logical reasoning, analyzing design trade-offs, etc."

Yes. I do so explicitly and intentionally, as there is no evidence these
benefits exist. That was my whole point.

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orborde
_Owen concedes that his findings don't necessarily mean that training in young
children or elderly patients is pointless. But "the evidence is not strong",
he says. "And someone needs to go and test it."_

This guy is a true scientist and a man after my own heart. He admits that he
could be wrong, and responds with an honest analysis of the limitations of his
results and a suggestion to go do some more tests to explore those dark
corners.

------
CWuestefeld
_a series of online tasks for a minimum of ten minutes a day, three times a
week, for six weeks._

How much benefit can one expect from three hours of investment? If this were
about, say, weight resistance training, would you expect to have bigger
muscles after this program?

~~~
jules
> If this were about, say, weight resistance training, would you expect to
> have bigger muscles after this program?

Yes, absolutely, and you will have better muscles. You can have big changes in
performance in a few days if you spend more time per day (but whether your
muscles _look_ bigger maybe not).

~~~
gaius
Most of the initial quick gains in weight training are related to gaining the
skill needed to coordinate your muscles correctly to do say a bench press.
Adding muscle requires patience - gaining 10-15lbs of muscle _per year_ is
about as good as it gets without steroids, and that's with training hard and
eating right all year too.

~~~
jules
Sure that is part of it but that isn't the only thing that happens. For
example: when I cycled 4 days about 60 km/day at age ~10 I was completely
amazed how much easier & faster it was when I cycled to school after this
vacation. This is _not_ due to better coordination, as I had cycled every day
for many years.

I'm not saying that you get significantly bigger muscles quickly, but you can
get _better_ muscles quickly (or perhaps it's due to the lungs/heart?).

BTW 10 lbs per year is a lot. It's more than 12 grams per day which is about
12 cm^3 per day. This is definitely noticeable. Where do you have this
information from? Do you have other information like this? I'd be interested
to know what exactly makes muscle tissue grow.

~~~
gaius
Loads of great info on www.crossfit.com www.t-nation.com www.gymjones.com

------
hmahncke
The interpretation of this study is astonishingly over-reaching. The BBC
researchers designed their own cognitive stimulation program, applied it at a
very low intensity in healthy young people, and then saw no effect on
cognitive function. To then claim that their data shows that "computerized
mental workouts don't boost mental skills" is akin to saying "sugar doesn't
help with a headache, and sugar and aspirin are both molecules, so aspirin
must not help with headaches either." This is an elementary logical fallacy.

There is a tremendous body of published evidence showing that certain
specifically designed cognitive training programs drive real benefits:
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19220558>
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17565162>

If the BBC researchers want to contest those results, they should use the
programs and methods used in those studies. This is a fundamental principle of
the scientific method, and its surprising to have to point it out to working
scientists.

The only conclusion from the BBC study is that very limited amounts of
everyday cognitive stimulation does not improve cognitive function. This is an
interesting conclusion, and the study should have reported it as such.

Henry Mahncke <http://www.positscience.com> I am a researcher at Posit
Science, where I design and test cognitive training programs.

~~~
tokenadult
Thanks for sharing the links with your brand-new Hacker News account. What
about the confidence intervals in the link

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19220558>

you kindly shared? The overlapping confidence intervals show that the effect
size is meager, even if there is "statistically significant" differences in
outcome between the treatment group and the control group, don't they? That's
always an important issue in interpreting research,

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

as pointed out in Warning Sign I5 of Peter Norvig's famous article.

------
tokenadult
This link

[http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100420/full/4641111a.html?s=...](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100420/full/4641111a.html?s=news_rss)

may be out from behind the paywall for many readers.

The story is interesting and important.

~~~
carbocation
Fortunately, neither appear to be behind the paywall. In fact, it appears that
the original article is free, as well:
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/pdf/natur...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/pdf/nature09042.pdf)

------
techiferous
I wonder if this applies to Dual N-Back?
<http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/>

This claims to have the support of a scientific study.

------
crux_
Does this mean my coffee break go games haven't been making me smarter? :(

(They've actually made me worse at go; blitz builds bad habits.)

