Brain Training

Science Fictions just did a podcast on Brain Training.  I have some things to add but will also use a lot of their info here.  Not a full summary, they've brought more out of the pantry there.

I wonder if our belief in brain training is conditioned by our analogising it to physical fitness. Challenging your muscles making them stronger is called hormesis.  We know it works for muscles and Nicholas Nassim Taleb believes it works for a variety of systems. We have an idea that it works on cognitive abilities because it doesn't look that different from ordinary development.  Fifth grade is more difficult than first grade. But in practice it is hard to differentiate between people who get smart because they challenge themselves and people who like challenging themselves because they are smart. We are comfortable with the idea that challenge makes us smarter but the evidence for that is surprisingly weak. Doing crossword puzzles definitely makes you better at doing crossword puzzles.  There is mild evidence that it makes you better at other word puzzles, the more similar to crosswords the better. This is why the programs and books have names like Brain Gym and Brain Training.

But what we want is for there to be brain exercises that help us think better in general.  Something you can do that sharpens your focus, staves off dementia, improves your memory.   Lumosity claims to imnprove memory. Processing speed. Problem solving.

William James believed brain function could be improved, and tested his theory on himself and his students in a fairly solid way, long before experimental psychology developed procedures. Quoting from Science Fictions' episode on Brain Training "...back to William James. After many days spent memorizing Milton's Paradise Lost, he observed no savings in memorizing a different set of 158 lines from (Victor Hugo's) Satyr at 57 seconds per line. Admitting that he was tired from other work for his second bout of memorising, he recruited four students to repeat the experiment, two of whom showed savings and two of whom did not. Given such weak evidence, James held to the view that one's native retentiveness is unchangeable." 

If only that had been the end of it, but James was one of the originators of the myth that we only use 10% of our brains, and our capacity is shamefully underused, which fits loosly with the brain exercise model.  

Starting with physical activity itself, might help during testing simply because of blood flow. The evidence for some cognitive improvement is not good, but there is some for regular activity sustaining what you have. The reason that it looks like improvement is that inactivity decreases the flow of blood to your brain, but only a few percent, and once you have that circulating, you don't get more improvement. There may be some small effect of having that blood flow often, but it is small, and this is one of the areas where publication bias is strongly suspected.  No one wants to hear it has only negligible results, so if your study shows that, you don't even submit it.

The health journal from Harvard Medical School  assures us that different kinds of activity, like journaling, musical instruments, or dancing are what do the trick. If you read closely, you will see that any proof beyond "A lot of smart people think so" is curiously lacking. "You have to always challenge your brain in order for it to grow."  Grow. What do you mean grow?  Like a muscle?  Like a tree? This is very much in line with the reposted article I just put up about Experts. 

As for stimulating different parts of our brain, that is also related to an older model of the brain, that various abilities are contained in discrete areas of the brain. fMRI's show clearly that the whole brain network is involved constantly in every kind of cognitive activity. There are differences, but your whole brain is used at least a little, unless something has gone wrong. We have been down this road before, with the Graduation 2010 program in Daviess County in Kentucky.  Every child in the public school system was taught chess, a musical instrument, a foreign language, and folk dancing for 13 years, to see if it created any overall improvement.  It didn't.  Disappointing News. 

Here are the claims from Verywell Health, Verywell Mind  and if you like your unsupported speculation to have a lot of scientific temps in it, California Learning Resource Network will tell you about "synaptic plasticity" and "cortical reorganisation." These are the things that would be affected if this mental decathlon worked.

We have seen a similar example of the effect of these interventions for decades, back to TV commercials in the 70s.  These training modules are part of a complete breakfast. Or they contribute to improved circulation.  Or they encourage heart health. 

They are selling you Lucky Charms as healthy food.