About brain training

About brain training

Brain training games are designed to exercise different aspects of your cognitive skills with a view to improving these abilities and limiting any deterioration due to age or inactivity. They can also provide a highly enjoyable and addictive playing experience.

Nowadays brain training puzzles are found in many newspapers, magazines and online. In addition there have been a number of popular brain training titles developed for video game consoles, most notably Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain title for the Nintendo DS.

Many of these games are aimed at improving memory and the speed with which a task can be done, such as solving a Sudoku puzzle. Some, such as crosswords, will expand vocabulary. Other mental skills tested include visual perception, spatial reasoning, reaction time, attention, verbal reasoning, mathematics skills, audio perception and what is called “fluid intelligence” or general problem-solving ability.

Many people report that these types of computer based training games have helped improve their thinking skills and recently a new Brain Fitness industry has begun to emerge. According to market research company, SharpBrains, this brain software market reached $225 million in revenue in the US alone. This of course doesn’t taken into account the much larger swathe of play for fun games products that are more loosely based around the brain training, brain twister and mind games concepts. Brain games and other simple knowledge based games, such as trivia quizzes, have also begun to see significant take up on mobile phones where they are well suited for short impulse play on small screens.

Historically the scientific evidence into this area has been somewhat ambiguous outside of young children and the elderly. However in 2008, a Swiss-American team reported in a leading scientific journal that a computer based brain-training method designed to improve working memory also increases scores in fluid intelligence http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080505075642.htm . This is significant as it supports a central assumption of our education system i.e. that what we learn in school will be later applied in our (professional) life.

The area of the brain that has been the focus of much of this scientific work is called the "prefrontal cortex". This functions as the central command area of the brain. The prefrontal cortex determines how the knowledge stored in your brain is used in any given situation a key aspect of “human intelligence”. This means that the good functional use of the stored knowledge and the appropriate handling of a situation, depends on how well you are able to make use of the prefrontal cortex to employ stored information and manage it successfully.

The left and right sides of the human brain are divided into four areas: the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe. The "prefrontal cortex" comprises most of the frontal lobe and is unique to humans. Maybe that explains our unique obsession with brain training.

Further Brain games Information

Play Harlequin - A colourful new game for 2 players that stimulates the mind for both kids and grown-ups...  
playharlequin.co.uk

Free Sports Quizzes - Free multi-sports quizzes with prizes related to specific sporting events: tickets or other paraphernalia....  
ticqiz.com

Students Resources - Extensive resources for students in a range of subjects including Maths, English, Science, Art, Geography and more in a range of study levels...  
studentsresources.co.uk

Lawn Bowls - Lawn bowling community website, with discussion and chat forums plus trivia, jokes and articles....  
worldbowler.com

Mensa Admission IQ Test - IQ tests similar to the Mensa test including solutions and a Helper to solve Mensa problems....  
bergmandata.com

Daves Brain Training Game - A free game comprising of mini math, word and puzzle games. This homebrew game is free to download and only a few megabytes....  
davesbraintraining.co.uk

Optical Illusions and Paradoxes - Puzzles, paradoxes, paradoxical ideas, games, poems and designs that are fun and informative. The site features Rob`s Paraboxes, optical illusions and other original work....  
curiouser.co.uk

Treasure Hunt Online - Play the online treasure hunt game, solve the cryptic clues and win cash prizes....  
cashhunt.co.uk