Today we will continue our review of the benefits of brain training for specific occupations: in this case, pilots and basketball players. The lessons can be relevant not only for corporate training but also for education and brain health & wellness.
To do so, we will select quotes from our interview last year with one of the major scientists in the field of cognitive simulations, Professor Daniel Gopher. You can read the full interview here.
Prof. Gopher published an award-winning article in 1994, Gopher, D., Weil, M. and Baraket, T. (1994), Transfer of skill from a computer game trainer to flight, Human Factors 36, 1–19., that constitutes a key milestone in the cognitive engineering field.
On Cognitive Training and Cognitive Simulations
AF: Tell us a bit about your overall research interests
DG: My main interest has been how to expand the limits of human attention, information processing and response capabilities which are critical in complex, real-time decision-making, high-demand tasks such as flying a military jet or playing professional basketball. Using a tennis analogy, my goal has been, and is, how to help develop many “Wimbledon”-like champions. Each with their own styles, but performing to their maximum capacity to succeed in their environments.
What research over the last 15-20 years has shown is that cognition, or what we call thinking and performance, is really a set of skills that we can train systematically. And that computer-based cognitive trainers or “cognitive simulations” are the most effective and efficient way to do so.
This is an important point, so let me emphasize it. What we have discovered is that a key factor for an effective transfer from training environment to reality is that the training program ensures “Cognitive Fidelity”, this is, it should faithfully represent the mental demands that happen in the real world. Traditional approaches focus instead on Continue Reading
See our second press release below, and visit our Press Room for the great press we are starting to get.
SharpBrains introduces First Online Brain Fitness Center
– Unique, Full-Service, Science-Based Fitness Center Ushers in the Next Workout Revolution: Mental Exercise –
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Thirty years after the emergence of the exercise boom, the fitness revolution has finally gone to people’s heads: SharpBrains.com has launched the first online brain fitness center. Complete with a variety of science-based mental exercise equipment, personal brain trainers, and nearly 200 articles, interactive blog postings and interviews with industry experts, SharpBrains is spearheading the evolution of the fitness industry to include a sound mind as well as a healthy body.
The new mental exercise movement is founded on using structured, computer-based brain fitness routines tailored to each member’s specific needs and level of ability. Just as crunches and kick-boxing tone abs and increase cardio strength, programs offered at the brain fitness center target and help train essential core mental muscles to improve memory, concentration, stress management, and decision-making skills. Mental exercise has also been shown to help delay the onset of age-related decline and even dementias such as Alzheimer’s Disease.
“People are realizing that cross-training their brains in addition to their bodies is essential to over-all health,” said Keep Reading
Given that we are getting new readers let’s re-introduce our Neuroscience Interview Series. If you click on the category (in the right bar) that says Neuroscience Interview Series, you will find the updated list of interviews we have conducted (and also some that have found elsewhere, such as the one with Posit Science’s Dr. Michael Merzenich and Dr. John Ratey).
The interviews we have conducted and published so far, with most recent first:
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We are spending more time talking to journalists these days. A frequent question we receive is, “OK, which computer-based programs do you consider to be Brain Fitness Programs, not just “games” for pure fun”?.
Our answer: the rate of development of new programs by neuroscientists worldwide is really increasing, and there are already a few out there that combine good underlying science with embedded quality assessments and user-friendly guidelines and exercises from a fitness and prevention (vs. medical “prescription”) perspective. Some of these are:
Cogmed Working Memory Training program (RoboMemo), helps children with attention deficits to overcome the working memory gap. and is distributed exclusively through selected clinical providers.
Freeze-Framer is a biometric-based system that helps people of all ages and occupations (from students to nurses and traders) get into The Zone of optimal learning and performance by managing the negative effects of stress and anxiety. Our partner is the Institute of HearMath.
IntelliGym provides a mental workout to improve core basketball abilities, such as coordination, attention control, peripheral vision, and perception. Yes, this can be trained. It is basketball specific, so we don’t recommend it for other sports. Our partner is ACE.
MindFit helps train 14 different cognitive functions that are important for healthy aging. Even if the activities are helpful for people of all ages (I personally use it as my “brain gym” during flights, being in my mid-30s), the look & feel is more appropriate for people over 50, so we recommend it mainly for that group. Our partner is Vigorous Mind.
Posit Science offers an intensive program for training core auditory processing abilities. Auditory processing is one of the areas that typically decline with age, so this would be a great starting point for anyone, usually above 60 given the marketing we see in their website, who may be experiencing problems with his/ her hearing and understanding capabilities. We do not offer this program through our website, but certainly respect their scientists and research.
We are constantly looking for new ones, so keep tuned.
MindFit, IntelliGym, RoboMemo, Freeze-Framer? Is this a puzzle? As you may have noticed, we just started to offer through the website some of the Brain Fitness programs we have been talking about. For over a year we have been searching for best programs worldwide, and here you have some of the programs we have found. We have interviewed in this blog the key scientists behind two of them, and will interview the rest over the next weeks. You will be hearing more about these programs in the general media in the next months, as the field of science-based Brain Fitness and programs like this mature. Here you have a quick overview of these programs: Read the rest of this entry »
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Professor Daniel Gopher is a fellow of the U.S. Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and the International Ergonomics Association, Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Human Factors Engineering at Technion, Israel’s Institute of Science, and one of world’s leading figures in the field of Cognitive Training. |
(For bloggers: please note that we have moved to a new “home”. If you are interested in linking to this post, please link to http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2006/11/02/cognitive-simulations-for-basketball-game-intelligence-interview-with-prof-daniel-gopher/. Thanks!).
During his 40 year career, he has held a variety of scientific and academic positions, such as acting Head of the Research Unit of the Military Personnel Division, Associate Editor of the European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, member of the Editorial Boards of Acta Psychologica, the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, and the journal Psychology.
He published an award-winning article in 1994, Gopher, D., Weil, M. and Baraket, T. (1994), Transfer of skill from a computer game trainer to flight, Human Factors 36, 1–19., that constitutes a key milestone in the cognitive engineering field.
Prof. Gopher has also developed innovative a) medical systems, assessing the nature and causes of human error in medical work, and redesigning medical work environments to improve safety and efficiency, and b) work safety systems, developing methods and models for the analysis of human factors, ergonomic, safety and health problems at the individual, team and plant level.
Alvaro Fernandez (AF): Professor Gopher, it is an honor that you speak to us. Could you provide an overview of the projects are you working on now? Read the rest of this entry »
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Thanks to MindHacks for the link to a good Washington Post article, ‘Pumping Neurons’. |
A couple of quotes:
“Recent research shows that the brain remains plastic, or basically trainable, throughout life. In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2002, significant percentages of the 2,802 participants age 65 and older who trained for five weeks for about 2 1/2 hours per week improved their memory, reasoning and information-processing speed.”
“When we learn, we create physical changes inside our heads. By practicing a skill, we repeatedly stimulate the same area of the brain, which strengthens existing neural connections and creates new ones. Over time, we can become more cognitively efficient, using fewer neurons to do the same job. And the more often we fire up certain mental circuits, the easier it is to get them going again.”
The reporter then goes on to review a number of websites that offer purely online exercises, i. e., she doesn’t review any of the software-based programs such as Posit Science for improving auditory speed, RoboMemo for working memory training, MindFit for 14 brain fitness areas/ cognitive skills , Intelligym for basketball game-intelligence, FreezeFramer for stress management, and others.
We will be reading more and more articles like that-which is good news for a nascent field. Now, I would recommend anyone considering such programs to always ask the questions:
1) What does the specific program look like: how many hours a week, how many weeks, and to accomplish what outcomes? some programs we have seen leave it so open that it is unclear for us how users are supposed to get what benefits. When we go to the gym, and we tell the coach what our objectives are, we typically get a good structure and program to follow
2) What research has been published, or has been submitted to publication, that supports that if a person follows that precise program he or she will likely obtain those promised benefit?
3) How do any benefits transfer to real life and to our cognitive abilities/ skills? by definition, by playing a game we get better at a game. Which is great in itself, because we learn something new, and it builds self-confidence. Now, how do I know that transfers into an expanded “mental muscle” or cognitive ability, that will also help me in domains outside the game itself?
Overall, the article is a good introduction to the concept of Brain Fitness, or brain gymnasiums, or mental gymnastics, or mental calisthenics -as you wish.
Please remember that you can find our new blog on Cognitive Fitness and Training Topics by clicking Here.
