Are the Lumosity, Elevate and other brain simulators

Lumosity and Elevate - this brain simulators that improve cognitive skills. They are not the only one of its kind, but perhaps the most popular. We decided to find out whether they really have a positive effect on brain activity and whether to spend their time and money.

The naked eye can see that people are beginning to recognize the video game, but it is still considered shameful to say that free time you like to spend, playing in the World of Tanks or Dota 2. And this despite the fact that only players three times lessThan the Internet users (1.2 billion against 3.2 billion). But the position of the opponents are weakened games every year, and last but not least due to brain fitness machine like Lumosity.

Lumosity and similar services operate on a similar principle. They have mini-games, each of which is focused on the development of mental abilities and individual skills. Attention, memory, speed of thinking, flexibility in solving problems - all this can be trained with the help of short plays, which are also quite fascinating.

The last six months I did not go to Lumosity, although this almost daily devoted to it for 20-30 minutes. I stumbled on the comparison and Lumosity Elevate - the two most popular brain training simulators - I decided once again to develop cognitive abilities and even wanted to pay for the premium version.

And in that moment I realized that I do not know about Lumosity nothing, except that the developer says the company itself.

according to researchListed on the page, Lumosity, fitness machine helps in the prevention and treatment of cancer, Turner's syndrome, dementia and other diseases. It is noteworthy that all of these studies were conducted either Lumos Labs - the company that created Lumosity, - or HCP Collaborations, which cooperates with the company and it is funded.

Research supported by the records, a large test groups and big names in the scientific field. But it is obvious that it is not necessary to believe unconditionally to them too much interest Lumos Labs observed when working on these studies.

Since Lumosity - the most popular player in this market, I tried to find independent research and evaluation of its work. Unfortunately, there are not many. To be completely accurate, only two studies.

Psychologists and neuroscientists at Stanford Longevity Center considerThat Lumosity exaggerates his accomplishments. The simulator has virtually no effect on people aged.

Camym pernicious myth they believe the company's claims that Lumosity can prevent or reverse the Alzheimer's disease.

In theory Lumosity games can do wonders, but in practice it is impossible to confirm. Comes to the ridiculous: Professor University of Florida compared cognitive skills of the two groups studied. Participants in the first group of eight hours played Portal 2, the second - at the same time, but the mini-games Lumosity.

The test took place in three stages. On each estimated one skill: a creative approach to solving problems, orientation in space, persistence (persistence) to solve the problem. The results of this study with peace of mind, you can stick in the face not only to fans of Lumosity, but also opponents of video games in general.

1. Creative approach - defeated players Portal 2.
2. Orientation in space - defeated players Portal 2 (by a large margin).
3. Persistence in solving problems - defeated players Portal 2.

With continued use Lumosity brain is still better to solve the problem, the score in the game will increase. Nevertheless, this is one of the features of our brain: the repetition of the same actions each time it performs more effectively.

And according to independent studies, the ability to quickly re-route locomotive, so he drove to the right tunnel, guess or two of the same cards are unlikely to have an impact on anything else, except for the games. You are all the same will forget the names of people, where to put the keys and where the second sock of a pair.

Despite this, studies still show that games have a positive effect on the brain. This area - a vast field for study. Perhaps the future of video games will be able to dramatically improve our cognitive ability. But at the moment we expect from Lumosity least some result is not worth it.