My Review of Lumosity

[Nathan]

I purchased a one year subscription, sort of an impulse buy. I guess I just wanted an easy way to track my performance in memory games and was also interested in spatial games. I have an interest in mental games in general and wanted to sample their offerings.

Here are the games that I find interesting/useful:
Train Game (divert the trains to their correct stations)
Spatial Games: rotation, spatial reasoning, etc.
Single N-Back Variants, including one with faces.

My conclusion is that a membership would be worth it if you were a novice of mental games, but someone more versed in the market and free offerings could find their own versions that were free and/or better. My favorite game is the train game: in this game, you have to manage multiple trains that are flowing down the train network and flip the trainswitch when needed. And they also have single n back variants. To be honest, I was expecting more games and slightly better games than what they offer. I felt like their games are basically just a random hodgepodge of mental games that were copied from other places by video game designers. I would like there to be more information with each game: where did it come from, and what is the research for it? I feel somewhat ashamed for buying a membership. One thing that might make the whole purchase worthwhile is that I am able to play the games from my phone, saving me from having to download separate apps for each game. It also introduced me to different mental games that I was not used to. There is a small handful of games that I legitimately believe are a useful addition to my mental workout routine. Among those are the train game, facial n-back, and spatial reasoning.

The train game is sort of like a "logical n-back" you have to remember which train is where and if you need to switch any switches to get it to it's location. So it is a working memory game with a different mechanic than n-back. The facial n back I just find interesting. The spatial reasoning game is one where you have to match a silhouette based on component puzzle pieces which you have to rotate and arrange to form the silhouette. I think this skill is not utilized enough in mental games I have found online. They also have single n back games which I find as a good way to vary my regular n back activities.

[T. Lavon Lawrence]

There must be some kind of time traveling benefit because the article is dated 11/7/2017 - other articles from that site are written in the future, also.

T

On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 4:49 AM, Andrey Pozdnyakov <moloto...@gmail.com> wrote:

Lumosity boosts brain function by 0%, the same as normal video games—study

Join us in Telegram (Brain training group): https://t.me/brain_training

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T. Lavon Lawrence
Author, INDISTRACTIBLE!© Brain Fitness System
Dynamic Mental Fitness Training

[Nathan]

What I have often said here, and I repeat again, is that I do not believe brain games improve the biological function of the brain, or overall brain function.

What I think is that the activities of some brain games can carry over to certain tasks that humans can perform day to day.

There are brain games that happen to be very similar to things that we do. And since most people work on computers, the carryover effect is more likely since the games are also on computers.

Let's say that I have to memorize faces. Lumosity's face game could potentially help me.

Let's say I want to get better at typing. I would play a typing game (although not exactly a brain game).

Another example is archery. Archers purportedly mentally rehearse their actions. While not exactly a brain game, this is sort of a mental rehearsal.

You may counter with - these are not brain games! I would agree. My use of brain game is different. I believe a "Brain game" does not actually improve the health of the brain - similar to how bodybuilding does not actually improve the strength of individual muscle fibers. But it conditions the muscular system for a wide range of purposes, some of which are counterproductive to the overall biological health. Bodybuilders do not make good long distance runners, and if they do not do cardio, they may not actually be very healthy if you just measured they cardiovascular health. Yet they are advantaged at a wide range of athletic disciplines.

From working as a professional software engineer, I believe that I can intuitively know that certain brain games help me. At the very least, they are a "mental rehearsal" like in archery. Maybe they are merely stress relief for me. But deep down, I believe that mental games are not given the credit they deserve and that the benefits are waiting to be discovered. Just like how bodybuilders in ancient times did not necessarily know exactly what these exercises did, they just knew from years of experience that these activities helped them.