My Top 10 Virtual Reality Experiences
This month’s blog is dedicated to my Top 10 VR experiences to date
Sort Your Brain Out
This month’s blog is dedicated to my Top 10 VR experiences to date
Sea Hero Quest – the world’s first smartphone game where anyone can help scientists fight dementia – announces it’s early findings…
PEAK continually evolves each game by adding a twist or making each game a little bit tougher – they’re also clearly keeping an eye on the latest research
MORE Brain Training offers a few new games, many of which are similar to the old ones, some are plain dull, but a handful are really quite novel and clever. Overall I would say it is a bit tougher on the old synapses than the predecessor (that’s a good thing)
MEMNEON is a fun, challenging and highly-addictive smartphone game that will increase working memory and thus (according to research by Torkel Klingberg) improve your IQ! Even Stephen Fry – the God-of-Twitter himself – tweeted that MEMNEON was driving him “delightfully dotty.” High praise indeed! The creative director behind Memneon was Steve Turnbull, who would probably feel that for me to suggest that it is “Simon” for the 21st century, would be selling it short. I would disagree. Simon was the original brain training device and, as such, decades ahead of the game. Memneon is like Simon on a high dose of amphetamines.
At the end of the day even if Beat City doesn’t inspire the desire to play a proper musical instrument, enabling the full brain-benefits of musical engagement to be earned, I believe it is nonetheless an effective way of challenging and thus improve your capacity for working memory, concentration and fine motor control that will come in useful in everyday life as well.
This review comprises my opinions, both as a consumer and a neuroscientist, of Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training on the Nintendo DS. I have previously (https://www.drjack.co.uk/brain-teasers-brain-training/) outlined my view that brain training is simply a matter of teasing your mental faculties with a variety of word, number and problem solving challenges on a regular basis. In this regard, the greatest advantage of the Nintendo DS brain training over the old-fashioned (but quite possibly equally effective) books of crosswords and number puzzles, is its fantastic convenience and flexibility. You can carry around with you literally thousands of mentally-taxing brain teasers for use during your daily commute, or whilst on adventures to the far corners of the globe, and it will take up no more room in your baggage than a small book. I have also previously described (https://www.drjack.co.uk/does-brain-training-really-work-by-dr-jack-lewis/) why I think that, despite the BBC’s headline-grabbing publication of research suggesting that “BRAIN TRAINING DOESN’T WORK”, I sincerely believe that the jury is still out on that issue. Here you will simply find my considered opinion on how this game rates – as a way to while away some spare time in a manner that probably won’t change your life, but certainly won’t do you any harm and might just sharpen up some very basic, but fundamental, cognitive abilities.