• Question: Is it posible to train our brain to do something or train the brain to more easily do something? ie. Memory

    Asked by raagavy to Ben, James, Jen, Michael, Susanna on 13 Mar 2013. This question was also asked by bluesapphire93.
    • Photo: Michael Craig

      Michael Craig answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      Hi,

      Great question. “brain training” games have been very popular in the last few years but people don’t actually show any improvement in e.g. memory when doing this brain training. If people do improve it is due to them finding a strategy to help them remember more information, e.g. they might give names to different shapes to remember them easily, or create a story out of the things they have to remember. So in a way it is possible to improve things like memory but, this is through the use of strategies to help you, not through training and trying to remember more and more information.

      Michael

    • Photo: Ben Brilot

      Ben Brilot answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      Hi raagavy,

      I agree with Michael: the evidence that “brain training” improves memory is very limited. But if you think about your question the answer must be yes: we ‘train’ our brains to be able to do all sorts of things. Learning how to tie your shoelaces is a process of training your brain to be able to remember the pattern of movements that gets those laces tied in a nice bow. Actually I recently took part (I was a human guinea pig) in an experiment a bit like this. People in my department are trying to work out how to use your nerve impulses to move robotic arms. The experiment I took part in got you to hold a joystick and you had to try to move it just using the electrical impulses in your hand. In other words, if I wanted to move the stick one way I had to think about tensing a particular bit of my hand and their computer detected the change in electrical current over that bit of my hand. To move the stick the other way I had to tense a different bit of my hand. I didn’t actually physically move the stick, a robot arm did, but by having my hand on the stick they were training me how to tense the right muscles. Effectively they were training my brain to carry out a task: moving a stick using a set of muscles that you wouldn’t normally associate with doing that action. Does that help answer your question?

    • Photo: Jen Todd Jones

      Jen Todd Jones answered on 19 Mar 2013:

      Hi raagavy!

      Mike is right, my dad works at a school and he recently almost spent a lot of money buying lots of ‘brain-training’ programs and machines, but it turns out while those games are good at training your brain, they’re good at training your brain for those games only! The brain is very complex and very adaptable, but that kind of learning doesn’t necessarily transfer into other kinds of learning and memory. Unfortunately practising languages or sports doesn’t mean your maths understanding will improve automatically.

      The most direct and efficient way of training your brain is rehearsal, it’s the way actors in films learn their lines and it’s the way you learn and remember things easiest – especially at school! I remember having to revise for exams at school and repeating reading, and testing and learning is by far the best way to remember things for a longer time.

      Jen

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