Having determined that my EEG headset is a great resource for tracking and measuring my cognitive performance, but lacking in the ability to train my brain (its apps are aimed at children), I decided to try one of the most advertised and hyped online brain training sites, Lumosity.com that claims Stanford, Harvard, and Berkeley as research partners. While their online advertising has always been off-putting, and their recent commercial (see below) makes me doubt the difficulty of the training paradigm, it seems that they are expanding their market share. At least, I will know what the mass market variant offers.

Getting started

The Lumosity home page is quite cluttered with testimonials, affiliations, and their standard head with pie chart image that has been plastered all over the internet. Overcoming doubts about the portended validity of the software, I press the large green ‘Start Training’ button which takes me to a setup wizard.

Setup Wizard Page 1:

The wizard asks me what aspects of Memory I would like to improve:

Keeping track of several ideas at the same time

Recalling the location of objects

Learning new subjects quickly and accurately

Remembering names after the first introduction

Choosing remembering names and recalling the location of objects (some heavy A/B testing going on so your order may be different than mine) I hit ‘Next’ but not before being hit with the sales pitch located on the right hand of the screen.

Setup Wizard Page 2:

Next I am asked to select what aspect of attention I would like to improve:

Improving productivity and precision at work or home

Maintaining focus on important tasks all day

Avoiding distractions

Concentrating while learning something new

I choose maintaining focus on important tasks all day, ignore more sales pitch and hit ‘Next’

Setup Wizard Page 3

Now I am being asked about processing speed and reaction time, which I was not expecting as this seems to be more the domain of athletic tools but on closer inspection of the choices,

Speeding up cognitive processes

Decision-making in time-sensitive situations

Adapting to changing environments

Reacting quickly

it becomes clear that they are looking to help you expand your ability to process information, think dial-up vs. broadband internet.

Setup Wizard Page 4

Nothing particularly interesting here as the questions are concerned with ‘Mental Flexibility’ and of the options presented, avoiding errors peaks my interest and I click Next.

Communicating clearly

Avoiding errors

Multi-tasking quickly and efficiently

Thinking outside the box

Setup Wizard Page 5

This page is actually fairly promising as it has options for skills that are easy to evaluate like numerical calculations and approximations. Anyone remember doing Fermi Question (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem) in school?

Calculating figures in your head

Determining the best course of action

Making quick and accurate estimations

Dissecting complex arguments

Almost there

Once I submitted my last set of preference there was a loading screen while the software ‘customized’ my training regimen and then produced a report of both my training priorities (upper right) which I was very happy to see was evenly balanced across all 5 training areas offered. Additionally, I was interested by their claims that I would improve 87% over 3 months and a graph of my projected curve. More of my thoughts on these projections and calculations later.

The Testing Begins

One more in between screen and the training begins.

The First Test

The first test is a pattern recognition exercise called Speed Match and it asks you to determine whether the image you saw immediately before this image is the same or not. While the exercise is not difficult, such exercises are well documented in scientific literature as real cognitive tests. Lumosity does a good job with this exercise as the images are clear and aesthetically pleasant. Not particularly difficult, but well done nonetheless. At the end of the exercise you get your score as well as your average response time.

The Second Test

The second test is another fairly simple pattern recall test that asks you to recreate a pattern that is shown on an ever growing number of tiles (provided you do not make any mistakes, in which case Lumosity temporarily decreases the level of difficulty). I felt that this exercise could be useful in recalling written information but was not particularly engaging.

The Third Test

The third test is where Lumosity.com seemed to lose focus and degrade from a potentially serious tool to something again geared towards children. In this exercise I was asked to recall where a bird would briefly appear in different landscapes in addition to what number flashed in the center of the landscape. Once the bird flashed on the screen I had to click where the center of the bird had been seconds earlier with points deducted for distance from the center of the bird and you could miss entirely.

This, unfortunately is where Lumosity goes off the rails and begins treating the user like a child. The prize for correctly completing the exercises is a portion of a photo of a bird (see below)…

The Baseline

So having completed three exercises that have progressively become significantly more ridiculous, Lumosity finally felt that it was ready to begin training me and showed me my initial ranking compared to its others users. I do need to preface this by saying that I was only moderately engaged in the exercises and definitely did not try hard to do well.

Even with my ‘sandbagged’ performance the software ranked me at the 85th percentile compared to its users, which worries me as i am not sure how much value I will be able to extract from this site. However, I am keeping an open mind and will go through the training for a few weeks to see if my initial impression is incorrect.

Initial take away

Lumosity.com does not leave a strong first impression. I found myself questioning the seriousness of the product as the site is littered with other organization’s logos and ‘neuroscience’ images in an effort to build credibility for the product (see below). I was also surprised by the easy nature of the exercises; I scored in the 85th percentile trying to keep my initial score low (see above). This, combined with the earlier graphic predicting a meteoric 87% improvement in my scores has definitely made me very skeptical as it suggests I can almost double my current abilities in 3 months…

Perhaps the general nature of the product was at some point aimed towards children whose parents want them to play educational games (would explain the ‘reward’ of a seeing a picture of a bird) or older adults that are suffering cognitive decline? That being said, I have to admit that some portions of the exercises are based in real neuroscience. N-back test, similar to the Speed Test are a recognized method for assessing cognitive function and some studies have shown that one can improve working memory by practicing these exercises.

I guess only time will tell and as always I will let you know if I see any results and if this can be useful for others.