Get Smart, Play Lumosity
Duncan Riley
22 comments »
Lumosity is a brain fitness program from Lumos Labs which is designed to improve cognitive function through a series of web-based games and exercises.
In developing Lumosity, Lumos Labs worked closely with leading neuroscientists from Stanford and UCSF to design and experimentally test the program. In a randomized, controlled study, the exercises were shown to have statistically significant effects in improving memory and attention.
Brain games are wildly popular in Japan and Europe, the Ninentendo DS Brain Age has sold millions of copies. The delivery of similar functionality online is the logical next step and although they might not be the most engaging games, that’s not the goal here.
Details of the research and methodology behind Lumosity can be viewd here.
That is a very interesting website! It’s not totally unique, but it’s still fairly good. I encountered a little bit of a bug on the birdwatching application, but it was otherwise very smooth.
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I only got a 122. Well, embarrassed because I felt that I could have done better.
At least it’s not one of those tests that will definitely give you a high score to make you feel good and buy some product.
I also thought the little tips were pretty useful!
Damn, there goes another one of my website ideas. I love all those brain age type of games and I do Sudoku puzzles and other puzzles to keep my brain fit, and I was thinking about creating a website that would offer a collection of games and somehow combine the score into what they call the Lumos IQ. Very clever, and nice and intuitive layout!
Hopefully one of these days I’ll actually get to implement my idea before somebody else does
Fantastic. Always good to keep fit mentally and physically. Signed up already.
Oh dear. Guys, you really should get this sort of thing checked out by someone who actually works in the area before you use Techcrunch as a promotional vehicle for it.
Thanks for the great write-up on Lumosity! I’m one of the founders of Lumos Labs. It’s been a fun challenge mixing behavioral neuroscience with gaming.
Lumosity was developed for healthy smart adults, and was empirically evaluated in this group. (You can download the white paper here: http://www.lumosity.com/pdf/lumosity_study.pdf) However, we’re now investigating potential cognitive training applications for patients as well. Dr. Shelli Kesler at Stanford recently began an experiment that will determine if Lumosity exercises improve cognitive function in children undergoing chemotherapy. To learn more or participate in this research, visit her site: http://spnl.stanford.edu/disor.....cancer.htm
Wow, I could likely really use this. I’ll be marking this one down and coming back to it. Amazing what TechCrunch finds day in, day out. I love it.
This was fun and even addictive, but I don’t see how they could standardize this, given variance in people’s monitor sizes and input mechanisms (keyboard and mouse). Standardization would mean they could have badges, you know, for bragging rights and all that. Although I guess that isn’t the point so much as the potential for individual improvement.
If I’m using a 30″ monitor at 800×600 then the bird watching would seem to get a lot easier.
I spoke of lumosity in my Web
http://www.dragonjar.us/aument.....sity.xhtml
Despairing, it’s probably more fun that fitness regimen, don’t lose too much sleep if it’s not strictly scientific or whatever. It’s a nice changeup regardless.
Eons has had it’s ‘Brain Builders’ for a while:
http://fun.eons.com/brain_builders
Same sort of idea…
Interesting. Michael, thanks for the link to the paper. I signed up.
Now, the real question: does this study prove that I should play more Nethack?
This looks a lot like Posit Science’s program. I will have to investigate further to find out. Im a tad skeptical, but I shall see soon.
My score = 126. I did best on the bird test.
My score after crystal meth (1 small biker gang sized piece) = 149
My score after 6 tokes of hydroponic BC skunk = 83
I’ve actually been taking 10-minute breaks throughout the work day to work through the training program (of which I’ve finished about a third). It’s nice to see your scores slowly improving.
Also, it makes you feel a bit better about yourself than, say, playing Sudoku would.
Nice game, but I´m sceptic about the IQ stuff. These exercises probably have zero effect on a person´s intelligence. I also noticed that my IQ score jumped up and down about 20 points depending on when I took the test…
Ive also been looking through many of these brain games. One product that caught my attention and I have stuck with is Posit Science’s (www.positscience.com) Its fun enough to keep me interested and I have already begun to see positive changes. It’s really worth taking a look at their website.