Lumosity
Lumosity’s brain training exercises are fun and challenging, and the games operate without a hitch.
Lumosity is the best known cognitive-training Web site—it presents a series of games and exercises designed to help improve one’s mental abilities. The games, developed by neuroscientists, are challenging and—for the most part—fun. Lumosity offers a personalized training program that focuses on subscriber-defined areas that need improvement. The games work very smoothly; the worst problem I encountered was occasional loading delays. The site is well designed, with a pleasing color scheme and graphics. It provides references to dozens of scientific studies that conclude that cognitive training in general—and Lumosity’s in particular—are beneficial, though the efficacy of cognitive training isn’t universally accepted.
Lumosity's games are based around 5 general cognitive areas: speed, memory, attention, flexibility, and problem solving. Before you register, you’re asked to choose particular aspects of each of these areas that you’d like to improve. For instance, under Attention, the choices include improving productivity and precision at work or at home, avoiding distractions, concentrating while learning something new, and maintaining focus on important tasks all day. From your responses—as well as your age—Lumosity builds a personalized training program for you. Once you register, providing your email, a username and password, and date of birth, you’re given a 3-day free trial.
Beyond that, access to the games is by subscription: monthly, $14.95 per month; yearly, $6.70 per month; two years, $4.49 per month; and lifetime, $299.95. (All except the monthly rate are currently on promotion for slightly less.) You have to register on the site before you even see the pricing structure.
Site Design
The site’s design is clean and straightforward and graphically pleasing. Once you register and login, you land on a home with top tabs that read Courses, Games, Assessments, and Brain Profile. From the Courses tab you can choose training courses you’d like to take. The basic training lasts 40 sessions, while most of the others are for 20 sessions. Each training session consists of 5 games related to the skill area in question. The specific games presented in a session vary somewhat from day to day.
Since I started using Lumosity about four months ago, I’ve completed the Basic Training and Flexibility Boost, and am currently making my way through Problem Solving Boost, with Attention Boost and Memory Boost on deck. It usually takes me 15 to 20 minutes to complete a session.
Mind Games
Through the Games tab, you can access a smorgasbord of roughly 40 games, ones you’ve encountered in your trainings plus ones you may not have seen before. All are challenging, often frustrating, and usually fun. Apart from occasionally being slow to load, the games ran smoothly and without problems in my testing in both Google Chrome and IE8 and 9. Everyone has their favorite games; among mine are Word Bubbles and Penguin Pursuit.
In Word Bubbles, you’re given 3 letters (PRE, for example), and you have to type as many words that start with them as you can (press, presume, precognition, etc.) in a set amount of time, after which you’re given another 3 letters, and when you’re done with them, a third set. I figured as a writer, this would be a piece of cake, but some letter combinations proved quite difficult.
Penguin Pursuit focuses on speed and spatial skills. You play the role of a penguin, racing through a maze on an iceberg to get to a fish before another penguin beats you to it. The iceberg keeps on rotating, but the arrow keys (with which you move your penguin) are tied to the iceberg’s original orientation, so you may find yourself having to press the up arrow to move sideways, or down—until the berg shifts again, and with it the keys. You’re given 3 lives; as the rounds progress, the maze grows larger and your opponent gets faster.
I found the math exercises hardest to warm up to (I guess there goes my geek cred…), but now I look at them as old friends. In Raindrops, a series of simple math problems (say, 11 + 17, or 36 ÷ 6) appear within raindrops, and you have to answer them before they hit the ground. After the third one hits, the game is over. As the game progresses, they fall faster.
Several games are speed tests, in which you’re presented a “flash card” showing a shape, and with each card you have to indicate whether it matches the previous card or not. Others exercise your memory of names and faces, such as Familiar Faces, in which you play the role of a waiter and have to take customers’ orders and learn their names—your tips, and scores, depend on getting these things right.
Brain Metrics
The Assessments section (Iisted as Beta) consists of a set of 16 quick brain tests designed to evaluate cognitive ability. Each test is focused on a different area. For example, Digit Span focuses on short-term memory, Grammatical Reasoning on flexibility and speed, and Memory Span on spatial memory. The Assessments page displays one’s most recent result for each test, but doesn’t keep any record of earlier scores. From the Assessments tab, you can also access a lifestyle survey; completing it will present you with an overall “brain grade” and point out changes you can make to better care for your brain.
The rightmost tab lets you access your Brain Profile, which shows how your training scores—overall, and in each of the 5 main cognitive areas—compare with other Lumosity users. Through a History sub-tab, you can access graphs, showing how your brain performance index (BPI)—overall, in each of the 5 categories, or for individual games, has changed, either over the past 10 games, 50 games, or showing weekly average. The BPI is a single-number score derived by how your score compares with the entire pool of Lumosity users.
Does it Really Help?
One section accessible through the home page is called The Science behind Lumosity. Scores of scientific studies have indicated that cognitive training provides benefits that extend beyond mastering the particular “brain games” used in the study, others disagree. I personally found the tests both rewarding and fun, but, as I am not a neuroscientist, my evaluation of the site is based almost exclusively on how much fun it was to use and my own subjective evaluation of its usefulness. Anybody considering using Lumosity (or a similar cognitive training site) in hopes of improving their minds would do well to do some research and draw their own conclusions.
How’m I Doing?
I joined Lumosity for my own edification and challenge—and with the hopes it would improve my mind—the possibility that I’d review it was at best an afterthought. I had previously tried other “brain training” Web sites and iPhone apps and enjoyed them, but Lumosity seemed more comprehensive, focusing on multiple and essential skill areas. I’ve always enjoyed games and puzzles, but don’t have the time to be a hard-core gamer.
In both my personal and professional life, I’m involved in a large number different tasks or projects—although I can easily switch between them, it’s often been hard for me to maintain focus on any one of them for long. It came as no surprise that in my first Brain Profile, my score for Attention was the lowest of the five main cognitive areas, while Flexibility was the highest. That is still the case, though my BPI in these and the other 3 main areas have progressively improved. That’s all well and good, but do my improvements in these brain games carry over into my life at large? I feel more focused and more able to stick to tasks, as well as switch quickly between tasks if need be. I couldn't say, however, if any of this is due to Lumosity or if other lifestyle changes have contributed, too.
We can’t guarantee any cognitive improvements from using Lumosity; your scores on the individual games are bound to improve, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the skills you practice in the exercises will carry over into the rest of your life. I’ve found the Lumosity training fun, challenging, and—as it only takes 15 or 20 minutes a day—brief enough that it doesn’t become a time-sink. Lumosity is well worth the subscription price, and well deserving of our Editors' Choice purely from a perspective of engagement and fun—any cognitive improvements are a fringe benefit.
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