As we age, several areas of our cognitive abilities begin to decline. Most people recognize that the older we become, reaction time, ability to multitask, ability to process new information, and attention/concentration begin to decrease in speed and accuracy. Lumosity is a fitness program for your brain!
Lumosity is an online program consisting of 30 training sessions. The first several sessions allow you to become familiar with the tasks or "games" while the computer is assessing your current abilities. After the assessment period, Lumosity adapts its program to a level of difficulty specifically for you. Over the course of the 30 sessions, it tracks your overall performance and gives you a written and graphic accounting of the progress you have made in increasing your cognitive abilities. These games consist of the following:
"Bird Watching" assesses and increases your visual attention. Simultaneously, a bird and a letter are briefly flashed on the screen. You must place your cursor over the exact location of the bird. If you miss the spot where the bird was located, you move on to the next frame. If you correctly locate the bird, you must then identify which letter was on the screen. This is so much harder than it sounds! If you correctly identify the letter, you are then given the opportunity to guess the species of bird using the letter shown. You receive extra points for guessing correctly before you have filled in all of the letters. However, if you guess incorrectly, you lose 10 points!
"Word Bubbles" is a game of verbal fluency designed to increase your creativity and mental flexibility. You are given three letters, such as "tro" and you have one minute to come up with as many words as you can that begin with those letters. This game makes me feel ignorant. I have played it several times and always become frozen and watch the timer count down because I run out of creativity and mental flexibility.
"Monster Garden" is a test of memory and attention. You are briefly shown where two monsters are hiding in a 4x4 maze, and then you have to find a path from the gardener to the flower without stepping on a monster. If you succeed, you are given bonus points for being able to identify where the monsters were hiding. You can also receive "health" points for making your path intersect with a vegetable. As you progress, the number of monsters increases and remembering where they are located is very, very hard.
Article comments
1 - Gene Venable
I would like to see a comparison between these sorts of activities and jogging. I have a feeling that jogging is better for long-term maintenance and improvement of brain functions. I am finding the Lumosity site fun, but I find many of the suppositions it encourages to be questionable. I would also like to see comparative benefits between Lumosity and learning a language,computer or foreign, take your pick! I suspect that any of the activities I listed are at least as good as Lumosity, and they are probably cheaper.