Brain Trainers - Smart Enough to Rip You Off

Are you one of those folks that invested in an application to "train your brain" to give yourself better cognitive function? Well, if you did, you are just as stupid as you were when you started off. And now someone smarter than you has your money. But that is how it usually works out.

A new study found people who use commercial brain training aids did get better at the training tasks themselves -- they showed "practice effects" -- but didn't benefit from a broader cognitive performance boost.

Before and after training, researchers had participants complete decision-making assessments, as well as tests designed to measure general cognitive abilities. Scientists found the training to have no impact on either set of tests.

Look on the bright side though, dummy. You are likely not more stoopider.

^^^

The issue with the brain trainers was not that they existed, it's that they've allowed the pseudo scientific research they're based off of to exist and be used in marketing.

The original research was likely from a university that takes a "grant" to test for it and of course leans into it or from a made up corporation with a scientific sounding name.

We have never ever found a way to increase IQ. Sure we have found ways to not decrease it. Have children with a woman whose eggs are still fresh. With a man whose sperm is still fresh, the greatest of all male advantages, that we simply get so much more time. Don't blame the devil, wait, I mean the "patriarchy", for what nature has done. Breast feed the children for a minimum of eighteen months, feed them appropriate healthy foods, and do not abuse them. Don't try to teach them common core idiocy. Don't drag them down. But we have never ever ever found a way to bring anyone above the IQ we are ultimately born with.

No amount of education will make you actually smarter. Just the same as you cannot make someone taller than they were born with. Sure you can restrict their food so they end up shorter then they were born. But if you give them extra food they do not grow taller, but they get fatter and fatter. Harrison Bergeron comes to mind;

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

No one is to blame. This is simply how it is. Accept it or die from the sin of envy, as the wages of sin is death. The deadly sins are not wrong because they hurt other people, though they do, but because they hurt yourself.

I've met many many men who are much smarter than I am. It's fine. I accept who and what I am. I even enjoy these brain games. They are not going to make me as smart as the smartest men I have ever met. And that's fine. I'm ok with my life. I accept it. And within my own life I will do my best to make my own life better, than my own life. And not ever try to make myself better than you, or anyone else. Rather than envy the men who are, absolutely are, smarter than me, I will listen and learn, to my own limit. And focus on where I actually am and what I can actually do with my own life. No envy.

Snowdensjacket said:

We have never ever found a way to increase IQ. Sure we have found ways to not decrease it. Have children with a woman whose eggs are still fresh. With a man whose sperm is still fresh, the greatest of all male advantages, that we simply get so much more time. Don't blame the devil, wait, I mean the "patriarchy", for what nature has done. Breast feed the children for a minimum of eighteen months, feed them appropriate healthy foods, and do not abuse them. Don't try to teach them common core idiocy. Don't drag them down. But we have never ever ever found a way to bring anyone above the IQ we are ultimately born with.

Click to expand...

I don't particularly agree with you there, brain plasticity and neuroscience studies have shown that the brain is much like any muscle in your body in that it will adapt and grow to overcome stressors. Where I believe these brain training programs fail is that they are akin to working out with a single 5 pound dumbbell at the gym. For them to be effective, they would need to become ever more challenging to the point of the user becoming exhausted every time. However, much like those that half assedly work out at the gym never lose weight or gain muscle, keeping the brain training at a "fun" level doesn't offer enough resistance to promote growth.

Now YOU can own your very own Thing-a-ma-jiggy !!! It will clean your windows for you, walk the dog and tuck you in at night ... and for a very limited time it's ONLY $20 + $2000 S/H but hurry, this deal will not last !!!

Snowdensjacket could be right in that their is a theoretical maximum IQ you can achieve but as he mentioned you can certainly drag it down. We know very well that rats that are given toys to play with end up smarter than their deprived counterparts. This is sort of a 6 of one half dozen of another argument. It doesn't matter if you are increasing cognitive function or reducing atrophy of cognitive function if you end up smarter than you would have that is all that counts. And one could make the argument that you will probably never achieve your peak capabilities, the question is how close can you get and does it even matter? We do know that IQ does not correlate with financial success.

"Neuro placisity"
Yep, nope. This catch phrase is why there are some "science" youtube channels I will never watch.