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Brain training and the transfer problem

People reliably improve at the game they practise. Whether that improvement shows up anywhere else is the question that has not gone well for the industry.

Near and far transfer

Gains usually transfer to very similar tasks and fade rapidly as the new task diverges. Large reviews find little evidence of general cognitive gains.

What does appear to help

Sleep, aerobic exercise, treating hearing loss and continued education have better-supported links to cognitive performance than any commercial training product.

Practice and test scores

Practising test formats raises test scores without raising the ability the test aims to measure. That is worth knowing before paying for a course.

Sit the paper — 20 items, 15 minutes

Scored against age, education and area norms. Free certificate with a QR code anyone can verify.

Start the test

Questions people ask

Is practising the item types cheating?

No, but be clear it improves the score more than the underlying skill.

Do memory games raise working memory?

They raise performance on the trained span task; broader transfer is weak.

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