http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...ience-dementia'Despite how ridiculous many of these exercises are, this is no laughing matter,' argued Della Sala. 'Some of the exercises are so simplistic you wonder whether we have lost our capacity for critical thinking when it comes to education. One of the exercises involves asking kids to breathe through the left nostril so that the air goes up into the right hemisphere and stimulates the right side of the brain to make the kid more creative,' he said.
http://www.psy.ed.ac.uk/people/sdsala/index_html
This vindicates my theory that childrens heads are hollow thats why they are so noisy.
Please notice this is a scottish professor from Edinburgh,
Prof Sergio Dellasala, Ok italian name but scottish none the less.
Any exercise in which you use your mental capacity will train the brain, crossword, reading and shouting at wooly thinkers.
Use it or Lose it....
Lost Thought..
I use Dr Kawashimas Brain Training, the games are very easy, but between games there is a lot of waffle about how particular exercises help.Originally Posted by lost thought
These brain training exercises are only any good at improving your ability to do brain training exercises!
I think the evidence for transference to other cognitive abilities is somewhat thin.
Ah! Here's where I read about it: http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/06/whi...eally-work.php
From the section on brain training:
There might be some small benefits from this type of thing for some people with some conditions.....Verdict: Evidence for the benefits of cognitive training for everyday functioning is still very limited. Brain training software currently available is mostly 'inspired by science' rather than based on it. Treat marketers' claims with extreme scepticism. Side-effects are probably limited to repetitive strain injury and a depleted wallet.
But it's most likely all marketing hype.
.
I've got one of the Brain Training games, and it's fun but the claims they make are a bit far fetched.
You get good at the particular skill you need for each game.
I don't know if there is any evidence to back up keeping your brain 'active', but in much the same way that people like to do crosswords to keep their brains active, these games have a similar function.
They just remind me of the time I used to play a lot of darts when I was younger. My mental arithmetic was amazing, I could add and multiply increibly quickly. But if you asked me to go beyond 501 I was stuck
The ability of darts players to calculate 501 -((3*19) + (3*17) + (3*15)) in 1 second always amazed me. It must be down to familiarity mustn't it? I don't mean to be unkind but some of the guys who can do it don't strike me as being particularly um... well I don't mean to be rude...
I used to play darts a fair bit and a lot of it is down to memory, that and knowing which doubles and trebles are your favourites.
Scoring a darts match without using one of those machines most pubs seems to have these days sharpens up your mental arithmatic I can tell you...
Though having a great memory or the ability to do rapid calculations is clearly useful for certain tasks, it doesn't help with things like insight. That's the ability I've always thought the most 'cool'. It is someone's dramatic insight that makes you think 'I wish I'd thought of that ...'
It is mostly memory, you just get used to the combinations. You get incredibly familiar with the rules of addition and subtraction though, it's almost as if you start to 'see' the what you scored or what you need. It still requires a bit of concentration however, it's not as if the brain just goes on auto-pilot.
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