"Lost in Migration" is designed to increase your cognitive control and reaction time. You are shown the flight pattern of birds. The central bird's direction is the one you must identify. Therefore, if all of the other birds are facing one way, but the central bird is facing another, you are required to suppress your automatic response to all the other birds and just focus on the center one. This is my best game for some reason. I can hyper-focus on the central bird without any errors.
"Raindrops" is a game for processing speed and numerical reasoning. Watch out on this one! The mathematical problems drop down ever so gently in a cloud. You must solve the equation, type it in, and hit "enter" before the cloud hits the ground and becomes rainwater. The game lulls you into a false sense of security then starts dropping rainclouds left, right, and center. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division... I was glad the timer ran out before I had to start performing calculus! That was intense! Moreover, no matter how many times I have played this game, my mind freezes up when I get six clouds at once.
"Speed Match" increases your processing speed. You have to identify whether the item shown is the same as the previous item. Once I understood that the game does not end after the first match but is an ongoing matching game, I found this one to be easy.
"Spatial Speed Match" is the same as "Speed Match" but it focuses more on spatial relations — in other words, where the location of a dot is on a die. If it is in the same place as the one before, you hit the "yes" key and if not, the "no" key.
"Color Match" is a game of processing speed and mental flexibility. You have to read the name of a color and determine if the second word is written in the color of the first word. This becomes very challenging very quickly because you have to suppress your natural urge to say yes when the name of the color is the same as the first, even if it is written in a different color.
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.