Nintendo Brain Games Effectiveness Questioned 63
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.'"
Re:so "go bust" means... (Score:4, Insightful)
How much more stupid can this get... (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
If anything, this actually PROVES that Brain Age is just as good as traditional methods, if not BETTER, while at the same time being FUN for the kids because in their minds, they are at play, not at work.
Can you say "non-sequitur"? As children our brains are more agile because we get frequent practice in school, but as adults we don't. I even remember the friggin' game pointing that one out!
It definitely worked for me. As a kid I used to breeze through simple maths, but as an adult I started losing that touch, frequently needing calculators to do simple math. But when I started using Brain Age everyday, I've gone back to my maths skill level as a kid.
If there's anyone who's a charlatan, it's this guy, purposely withholding statistics that prove him wrong.
Re:Wasn't there an identical study in Great Britai (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:so "go bust" means... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, now put this against a neurologist (the titular Dr. Kawashima who apparently wrote a book about brain exercises and their effect) who measured the brain activity when playing the games...
Also it should be mentioned that these games are NOT sold as homework helpers, they're aimed at adults, probably to keep the fluid intelligence fluid for longer.
Re:maybe not... (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
Were you really expecting a Frenchman not to be arrogant?
I laugh at you and your innocent naivety.
Re:Bust? Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
* DS games groups: 19% improvement
* Pencil and paper games group: 19% improvement
* Control group: 18% improvement
And what is the confidence interval here? Is that 1% improvement over the control group even statistically significant?
In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
...in other news, another french professor did a study comparing the effect of WiiFit in four group of teens.
Teens in 2 of the groups played WiiFit in their leasure time.
Teens in 1 of the groups participate regularly in regional sport competitions.
Teens in last group don't have peculiar physical exercices outside their regular activities.
(All teens go to a military boot camp as their everyday activity)~
Results show no noticeable improvement within the 2 Wiifit groups compared to the 2 others~
This come as a surprise after a study showing promising results among a population of modibidly obese couch potatoes~
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More serioulsy : Yes, indeed. The other kids did classic games and all of them went to school. Brain Age isn't some miracle, so you won't see anything peculiar.
Still all of these (Decent school system, edutainment, and classic pencil-and-paper games) are all better than drooling the whole day in front of a TV set.