BBC: Brain training doesn't train brain

By Tom Bramwell Published 21 April, 2010

Players get better at the games though.

Brain training games are no better at training your brain than browsing the internet, according to research going into a new BBC programme.

"Can You Train Your Brain? - A Bang Goes The Theory Special", which airs tonight at 9pm BST on BBC One in the UK, followed 11,430 people over six weeks to measure the impact of brain training activities.

Participants were split into three groups, a third of whom did regular sessions to test reasoning, planning and problem-solving, while a third played specially-created games designed to train short-term memory, attentions, maths and visuospatial skills, and the other third did web-browsing stuff.

Apparently nobody exhibited any more brain power afterwards, although the game-players did get better at the games they were playing.

"Statistically, there are no significant differences between the improvements seen in participants who played our brain training games, and those who just went on the internet for the same length of time," said Dr Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist from the Medical Research Council.

Naturally the BBC contacted Nintendo - maker of the Dr Kawashima's Brain Training series, which have sold millions of copies worldwide - for a reaction, although it hadn't used the Brain Training series in tests.

Nintendo said that its games never claimed to be scientifically proven to improve cognitive function, but rather that they were "fun challenges incorporating simple arithmetic, memorisation and reading".

"In this way it is like a workout for the brain and the challenges in the game can help stimulate the player's brain," it told the BBC.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • bad09 #1 2 years ago

    I R stupid but it's still a fun game.

  • tomkuryakin #2 2 years ago

    Slow news day at the BBC, apparently.

  • jellyhead #3 2 years ago

    Very slow.

  • Fab4 #4 2 years ago

    "Apparently nobody exhibited any more brain power afterwards, although the game-players did get better at the games they were playing."

    What were they playing the games with then? The fact is that the ability to 'get better' at something requires a change in the brain.

  • Eraysor #5 2 years ago

    I'm amazed they felt the need to test this really; I never expected the games to have any dramatic impact on my overall intelligence, even if they are fun.

  • Freek #6 2 years ago

    Strange, you'd expect atleast an improvement in math skills, since that's a learn-able skill applicable outside the game.

  • Armoured_Gideon #7 2 years ago

    I do think there is a point in this. Much of Nintendo's noise around these games is designed to cultivate the impression that you will gain intelligence, without explicitly stating it. If a BBC study is what it takes to clear this up, so be it. Nintendo's churlish response amounts to nothing more than 'Well, we never really said it would make you more intelligent. Not, like, explicitly. So, you must be stupid if you believed it. Are...are you stupid?"
    Edited by 3 at 21/04/10 @ 09:23

  • tomkuryakin #8 2 years ago

    The real reason the BBC are putting this on the News at Ten and the Today programme is to try to get people to watch the documentary that's on tonight. It's advertising masquerading as news.
    Edited by 1 at 21/04/10 @ 09:27

  • tomjoadsghost #9 2 years ago

    I'm hoping that nintendo will be portrayed as an evil corporation who are willfully misleading consumers with their exaggerated claims - preferably in hushed reverent tones indicating that their program is unraveling a labyrinthine web of deception on a par with watergate or that milli vanilli thing.

    I'd settle for confirmation that videogames are inherently evil and a waste of life though.
    Edited by 1 at 21/04/10 @ 09:33

  • Eraser #10 2 years ago

    I thought the whole brain training fad was debunked the day the first Brain Training was released? So what I'm trying to say here is that the BBC is a few years behind on the news.

  • ArchiRag #11 2 years ago

    "What were they playing the games with then? The fact is that the ability to 'get better' at something requires a change in the brain."

    a change in the brain doesn't necessarily mean more brain power, just a greater familiarity.... as they said on the news report, Nintendo didnt claim that it would increase brain power, just stimulate it, which is a bit of a red herring as pretty much everything stimulates the brain. Maybe it has a bit of a placebo effect on peoples confidence or something, anyway if people still want to buy them and find them fun i dont see what the problem is

  • Fab4 #12 2 years ago

    Once you reach a certain age (usually adolescence) your ability to increase your brain 'power' has finished. The only way forward is a reconfiguration of the synapses in order to 'learn'.

  • SpaceMonkey77 #13 2 years ago

    Even I'm a harsh critic of Nintendo, but this supposed news piece was stupid. Notice how there was no one from Nintendo or the games industry to counter point such claims, the same way they would if this was about politics.

    From what I recall, Nintendo never said Brain Training improves your intelligence, and if not them I'd like to know who exactly did, yet I see no ones name mentioned. Nintendo claim it will improve and speed of those mental skills that otherwise remain dormant or underused. There's a big difference. Brain Training is also meant to be used over a long period like regular exercise, so how on earth they can judge it on one simple test is beyond me, especially when the daily variables of a persons life come into play, but obviously won't come into play i a controlled test. On top of that, why is web browsing chosen for comparison than other games, when web browsing can also be done on a DSi. Just like other reports on games, I smell a journalistic rat chewing crap. Also spare a thought for those games pictured, but not represented by the good people who create them. Which again begs the question, do they mean the whole traing game genre, or just Nintendo's product? Either way, and industry rep still wasn't spoken to.

    Sorry BBC, you are trying to be the whiter than white paragon, but still dealing crap. We all know those people at the BBC, are no friends of popular rival media like games, and frankly never will be til more forward thinking people run the show. Shows you fools will go to any lengths to get an audience, and is exactly why I largely don't both watching your channel anymore.

  • Mkwone #14 2 years ago

    I think people are giving the BBC a bit of a rough time. The fact is millions of brits have purchased these games, and many on the theory it will improve their brain power. As such it's a public interest story proving that many customers may of been mislead. It's like when they show programmes about how healty healty food rearlly is.

    I'd be curious to see another programme on the health benefits of Wii fit and the like.

  • TheApologist #15 2 years ago

    Overall 'brain power' is a concept that needs defining.

    General IQ is an increasingly discredited idea within neuroscience as I understand it (though there will be proper experts in this area). The brain is not the unified function our self-consciousness gives us the impression that it is. So, yes, 'Brain Training' doesn't improve some concept of overall cognitive function. But then nothing could. So the criticism seems based on a flawed premise.

    People get better at specific cognitive functions, like the maths they do in to the game. What other kind of brain development is there?

  • CaptainScarlet #16 2 years ago

    I think that in general all we can do is agree that repetitive testing and use of memory discipline is actually training your brain rather than making you smarter. Training to improve maths skills is a valid exercise. Training to improve memory and retention of words and facts is a valid training exercise. All of these thing help "Train" your brain.

    To be fair surfing the internet is also training your brain as you are learning things you may not know or clarifying information. So it probably does do the same thing. However, all Nintendo and other companies are really doing is making this process more fun and marketing it to people that are interested.

    BBC need a big cup of "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

  • jellyhead #17 2 years ago

    So the BBC are running a news-advert telling us that millions of Brits are stupid enough to assume that these games will make you cleverer?

  • Phishfood #18 2 years ago

    No way! I am sure it does train my brain. I practice those simple math games x20 and x100 and I will eventually get better as time goes on, then in my daily life whenever I need to do some quick mental arithmetic I am much faster. If I stop playing it for a long time I become much slower.

  • marmaduke #19 2 years ago

    So, only stupid people believe they can train their brain using Brain Training? Seems like a perfectly valid business model.

  • jonfon #20 2 years ago

    Oooh, you spoiled it for me. You gave away the end!!

    Hurrah, now I don't have to watch a bunch of escapee presenters from Blue Peter running some inane experiments and dragging it out for an hour. Most of the male presenters on that show look like failed clones of Richard Hammond.

    BRING BACK TOMORROWS WORLD!!
    (and keep Richard Hammond and this lot well away from it)

    Ahem. Okay. I'm good now.

  • jambo74 #21 2 years ago

    How do you measure 'brain power' then?
    It is not IQ, that is a different issue.
    It is not the ability to do tasks either, that is just training.

    Brain Power is what?
    Edited by 1 at 21/04/10 @ 12:21

  • jonfon #22 2 years ago

    "How do you measure 'brain power' then?
    It is not IQ, that is a different issue.
    It is not the ability to do tasks either, that is just training.

    Brain Power is what?"

    The amount of energy you can tap from a nice, fresh, well maintained human brain in a jar? Nintendo are actually wave one of the Hive Machine Intelligence from The Matrix doing Market Research.

  • spenner #23 2 years ago

    I knew it. All them hours on redtube were mentallly stimulating as well

  • Rubarack #24 2 years ago

    They were never meant to make you smarter, just stop you getting dumber quite so quickly. Of course Nintendo will have stretched this point way beyond breaking point in their marketing.

    So really all this shows is you can't always trust adverts. Who'da thunk it?

  • GiarcYekrub #25 2 years ago

    Surely the results are misinterpreted...

    "Statistically, there are no significant differences between the improvements seen in participants who played our brain training games, and those who just went on the internet for the same length of time,"

    Surely the headline should be..

    WANKING MAKES YOU SMARTER

  • jellyhead #26 2 years ago

    Auntie lied to us all those years ago! 0_0

    [link url=http: //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7635404.stm
    ]http://ne ws.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7635...[/link]


    Computer game boosts maths scores

    The games included reading tests and memory puzzles
    A daily dose of computer games can boost maths attainment, according to a study carried out in Scottish schools.

    Learning and Teaching Scotland - the main organisation for the development of the curriculum - analysed the effect of a "brain training" game.
    It also found improvements in pupils' concentration and behaviour.
    The study involved more than 600 pupils in 32 schools across Scotland using the Brain Training from Dr Kawashima game on the Nintendo DS every day.

    Noooooooooo! They lied!

  • makariel #27 2 years ago

    Doing the math-thingies with brain age helps me calculating quicker. If I didn't do brain age for some time I notice that my math skills deteriorate. Solving some random math problem each day would of course do the same, but brain age is just much more fun than 'doing math'.

  • Caimbeul #28 2 years ago

    No need to watch the program after reading the title of this article.

    ...not that i planned to bu EG are so careless with spoilers.

  • hiddenranbir #29 2 years ago

    Bang Goes the idea box.

  • Gouki #30 2 years ago

    Agreed with 1st post who cares......... ITS FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


    "Bang Goes the idea box" oh lol

    bang goes the theory also did a topic on ash and the effect on jet engines... lol then the aviation news 36 hours later.
    Edited by 1 at 21/04/10 @ 21:07

  • Farzlepot #31 2 years ago

    "Playing a video game for six weeks doesn't make you Einstein" shocker! I'll file this alongside the "Rosetta Stone PC software doesn't actually make you a fluent Russian speaker" and "Call of Duty addicts are useless in real armies" shockers.

  • FireMonkey #32 2 years ago

    Just watched it and read the details online (http://ww w.bbc.co.uk/labuk/results/brain... and this is what I got from it:

    - They call it a 'clinical trial', but as the control group was online there is no way of being sure they did not play training games during the trial period and so the control is not true and can not prove anything.
    - 4 tests, 12 games yet only 3 cross over in what they train / test.
    - They quote that "People who play brain training games get better at those specific brain training games", so if the game is based on math, surely this means the player gets better at that form of math? How does this mean they don't work?

    A lot of the ways the games train is also the way in which a lot of schools teach, so what does this say about our schools?

  • FireMonkey #33 2 years ago

    Just found this: [link url=http://www.brain fitnessforlife.com/brain-games/challenging-the-nature-and-bb c-brain-games-study/
    ]http://ww w.brainfitnessforlife.com/brain...[/link]
    Really shows why the BBC's test was badly run and why the conclusions can't be accepted.

  • revelmob #34 2 years ago

    Since we are on the topic of Brain Training, have you tried this recently released - free - BrainAgeTest iPhone app: http://www.rev elmob.com/brain-age-test

    What's your mental age?