Written by: Laurence Nicholson, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
For anyone who has been on my Proactive Executive Corporate Mental Health Training course, they will know I mention using ‘brain training’ apps as part of the approach to optimizing brain performance around attention, selective attention and impulse control, and even mention one specifically because of its ability to adapt to the user’s performance.
Firstly, no. I am not altering my opinion nor my recommendations around using them, but I am going to provide a bit more guidance in relation to what they can achieve, why they are useful, and when to use them.
What has prompted me to write about this, is the ever-increasing number of such apps available which promise all sorts of long-term benefits and ‘miracles’ of the longevity of brain performance for a short-term use in earlier life, which is definitely not the case.
As with most improvement approaches in any area of our lives, they require ‘life-changes,’ meaning that the actions need to become part of our everyday normal habits in order to be effective.
Predominantly, brain training works to exercise our ‘fluid intelligence,’ which is our ability to apply present unique factors together with our learned experiences and education (our crystallized intelligence), to a problem to be solved.
Within the corporate environment where I spend much of my time providing training, fluid intelligence is considered a predictor of a person's capacity to work well in environments characterized by complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity, and anyone who has undertaken a psychometric test will have found it often contains a Cognitive Process Profile (CPP) which shows the calculated results of a person's fluid intelligence and cognitive processes. This is mapped against suitable work environments to match the role to person, for optimized resourcing.
Fluid intelligence has a growth and decay profile, which peaks at around age 20 and then gradually declines. This decline may be caused by natural localized shrinking of the brain in the right cerebellum, a lack of cognitive practice, or the result of age-related changes in the brain.
Crystallized intelligence also has a growth and decay profile, but typically increases gradually, stays relatively stable across most of adulthood, and then begins to decline after age 65. The exact peak age of cognitive skills remains variable between individuals.
It is thought this ‘variability’ is due to working memory capacity, which is closely related to fluid intelligence, and is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can hold information temporarily.
Working memory, as a theoretical concept central to cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and neuroscience, is important for reasoning and the guidance of decision-making and behavior, and is often used synonymously with short-term memory, but some theorists consider the two forms of memory as being distinct, assuming that working memory allows for the manipulation of stored information, whereas short-term memory only refers to the short-term storage of information.
When considering the neuroanatomy, fluid intelligence involves both the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, and other systems related to attention and short-term memory. Crystallized intelligence appears to be a function of brain regions that involve the storage and usage of long-term memories, such as the hippocampus and amygdala within the limbic system.
What was interesting in the research on training working memory, and that training's indirect effect on fluid ability, so is directly relevant to the ‘brain training’ apps, is that because working memory is thought to influence fluid intelligence, then training to increase the capacity of working memory could have a positive impact on it.
There is a caveat though, and some researchers question whether the results of training interventions to enhance fluid intelligence are long-lasting and transferable, especially when these techniques are used by healthy children and adults without cognitive deficiencies.
A meta-analytical review published in 2012 concluded that "memory training programs appear to produce short-term, specific training effects that do not generalize." (see footnote [1])
In a series of four individual experiments involving 70 participants (mean age of 25.6) from the University of Bern community, Jaeggi et al. found that, in comparison to a demographically matched control group, healthy young adults who practiced a demanding working memory task (dual n-back) approximately 25 minutes per day for between 8 and 19 days, had significantly greater pre-to-post-test increases in their scores on a matrix test of fluid intelligence. (see footnote [2]) However, there was no long-term follow-up to assess how enduring the effects of training were.
Two later n-back studies did not support the findings of Jaeggi et al., finding that although participants' performance on the training task improved, these studies showed no significant improvement in the mental abilities tested, especially fluid intelligence and working memory capacity. (see footnote [3])
It is now widely considered that the balance of findings suggests that training for the purpose of increasing working memory has short-term or no effects on fluid intelligence, hence they needed clarification I alluded to, which is that whilst short term is recognized, these exercises need to become part of your everyday routine throughout life to continue to experience the benefits, so any suggestions that using such apps for a few weeks/months/years in your life will likely provide a long term improvement in your cognitive capacity related to fluid intelligence, is the claim of a modern-day ‘snake oil salesman’ and not to be believed.
The bottom line is, by all means, use the apps, but be prepared to add them to your ‘forever’ routine, to maintain any cognitive benefits they provide.
Laurence Nicholson, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Laurence Nicholson is the CEO and founder of the N Cubed Group, My Better Life – Mind Coaching, and Exec Mental Health Solutions, through which he works with both Corporate clients and individuals, to improve and optimize mental health, performance and resilience, in order to realize measurable improvements in business and personal productivity and decision making.
A Mind Coach, certified as a Corporate Mental Health Facilitator, holding 'Distinction' grade certifications in Life Coaching, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Psychoanalysis, Depression Counselling, Anger and Aggression Management Counselling, Criminal Psychology, Forensic Psychology, and Corporate Wellness Coaching, Laurence is also trained in Corporate Coaching and Mentoring, Behavioural Analysis, and to expert level in non-verbal deception detection and analysis.
He has spent over 35 years working across corporate environments, as both a consultant and leader, and when he was first sent abroad for work way back in the 1990’s, he became fascinated by how different people and cultures think and behave in different ways under the same conditions, and quickly became addicted to immersing himself within local environments, in order to get a true experience of thought processes and event-behavior associations.
Human psychology and behavioral patterns became his passion, and he used his corporate consulting work as a way to enable him to travel extensively and to study wide and diverse behaviors, and investigate the ‘how and why’ of our brain’s processes, and more importantly the impacts of stress and change on people, universally.
His business education and experience as an advisor and consultant in procurement, finance, law, information technology, organizational change and executive management, combines with his life experiences and numerous culturally immersive experiences from working in over 14 countries around the world, to provide what his clients consider as a unique appreciation of their individual circumstances.
Laurence aligns himself with Jungian psychodynamic theory, with its spiritual element, and supports this as a certified and attuned Reiki Master Teacher and a Certified Meditation Teacher.
[1] Melby-Lervåg, Monica; Hulme, Charles (2012). "Is Working Memory Training Effective? A Meta-Analytic Review" (PDF). Developmental Psychology. 49 (2): 270–91. doi:10.1037/a0028228. PMID 22612437.
[2] Jaeggi, Susanne M.; Buschkuehl, Martin; Jonides, John; Perrig, Walter J. (2008). "Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 105 (19): 6829–33. Bibcode:2008PNAS..105.6829J. doi:10.1073/pnas.0801268105. JSTOR 25461885. PMC 2383929. PMID 18443283.
[3] Chooi, Weng-Tink; Thompson, Lee A. (2012). "Working memory training does not improve intelligence in healthy young adults". Intelligence. 40 (6): 531–42. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2012.07.004. Redick, Thomas S.; Shipstead, Zach; Harrison, Tyler L.; Hicks, Kenny L.; Fried, David E.; Hambrick, David Z.; Kane, Michael J.; Engle, Randall W. (2012). "No Evidence of Intelligence Improvement After Working Memory Training: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study". Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 142 (2): 359–379. doi:10.1037/a0029082. PMID 22708717.
