Nintendo Brain Games Effectiveness Questioned

nandemoari writes "While Nintendo boasts that its Wii can make you fit, the game company's popular line of DS 'Brain Games' have for some time promised to make kids smarter by challenging them with word puzzles and math formulas. However, a French professor isn't buying the shtick. University of Rennes professor Alain Lieury, a cognitive psychology specialist in Brittany, France, recently studied a group of ten-year-old children playing a variety of mentally-challenging games. Not all were video games, however; Lieury pitted more traditional games (including sudoku, Scrabble, and regular old reading and homework) against Nintendo's popular line of DS hits, including Brain Age, Big Brain Academy, and Brain Training. Although he credits the Nintendo DS — one of the best selling consoles of all-time — as 'a technological jewel,' he finds Nintendo's claim that it can actually help kids learn is nothing more than pure 'charlatanism.'"

Wasn't there an identical study in Great Britain

[Shin-LaC]

...that got the opposite results? Also, aren't brain games aimed more at middle-aged people than at kids?

Bust? Really?

[__aatgod8309]

Basically the study showed that kids doing puzzles on the the DS advanced the same as kids doing pencil-and-paper puzzles. It's not saying that it doesn't work, it's saying that the activity works, regardless of the medium.

So if it works, how is it 'bust'?

maybe not...

[phantomfive]

As mentioned in the article, [bbc.co.uk] another group in Scotland with 10 times as many test subjects found completely different results, that scores increased by as much as 50%. Also, in that group, the difference was more noticeable in students who were farther behind. Maybe the French students were all quite advanced, and didn't need any extra help? In any case, given the previous study, it is quite over the top for the French scientist to call it charlatanism, since there are other studies that show it helps. It would be nicer and more accurate to say, "the issue is more nuanced than often implied."

Wrong Wrong Wrongity Wrong says Dr Cox /Scrubs

[EQ]

So DUH, they don't work for children; that's not who they were designed for, nor marketed to! Fast reading of Tom Sawyer, or doing 100 Sudoku puzzles is hardly "kid" activity. This guy missed the purpose by a mile.

To verify, simply go to the Brain Age website [brainage.com] and read the blurbs, all aimed clearly at "aging" adults.

For instance there's this on page 1 front and center:

Exercise is the key to good health both for body and mind - and now, with the Brain Age games, there's a way to make mental exercise fun, even competitive. Just minutes a day, that's all it takes to challenge your mind and, with Nintendo DS portability, you can play Brain Age at work, on vacation, or anywhere your day takes you.

And this piece of market-speak Inspired by the work of prominent Japanese neuroscientist Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, the Brain Age games feature activities designed to help stimulate your brain and give it the workout it needs

Vacation, workplace, brain stimulation (like a 10 year old needs MORE stimulation?), yeah all typical concerns of 10 year olds. I mean really this guy jumped the on failboat: they advertise/review this at AARP.org (link at the site)

So it seems me Cognitive Psych guy missed a very big cognitive clue: they aren't marketing most of these for children, but to aging boomers! What a dimwit he appears to be.

Brain Age is not aimed at helping kids learn, its aimed more at adults to allegedly stimulate cognitive centers of the brina via calculations and puzzles -- that is supposed to help keep the brain "young". Some studies have shown that puzzle games of the sorts in these games help hold off aging effects on the brain.

How well it works is up for discussion, but saying it doesn't work for 10 year olds for whom it isn't designed nor marketed, well, lets say the study psychologist may want to use Brain Age himself to see if it helps his cognition of the obvious, which is evidently lacking.

Re:How much more stupid can this get...

[ericvids]

That's EXACTLY what I'm complaining about. The author was purposely HIDING the statistics to make it appear bad. Read between the lines: 17 percent worse than what? Themselves BEFORE? Or worse than the pencil-and-paper group? If it's the latter, then that means they memorized 16% BETTER than before, which is STILL an improvement. If it's the former, it is highly improbable to happen and I'll have to question their method.

Speaking of questioning the method, I have a strong feeling that they actually used pencil-and-paper to test ALL of the kids before AND after! Believe me, the medium AFFECTS the memorization; many people use short-term visual memory to memorize words on these kinds of tests efficiently. If they asked the pencil-and-paper kids to do the test on a DS, I'll bet you two to one that they'll perform WORSE than the DS kids.

And I have a very GOOD reason to question the method:

In logic tests the Nintendo children registered a 10 per cent improvement, as did the pencil-and-paper group. The children who had no specific training improved 20 per cent.

Wow, suddenly BOTH groups are worse than the control group! Smell a conspiracy? I do too.

Re:Bust? Really?

[ShakaUVM]

Yeah, if that's all he studied, it wasn't properly controlled.

However, the summary doesn't mention that they divided the kids into 4 groups. Two with DS games, one with pencil-and-paper games, and one control. The DS games improved kids results by 19%, the pen-and-paper by 18%, vs control.

So they do work. The summary should have said, "Suduku is just as good as Brain Age" instead of saying "Brain games go Bust"...

Re:Bust? Really?

[Directrix1]

That and Brain Age has Sudoku as a game. So he is also not very observant.