Lumosity Brain Training Review

About a month ago I began testing a fascinating new beta called Lumosity. The service is designed to exercise user's brains with a series of games that promote cognitive skills. According to Stanford neuroscience graduate and Co-Founder Michael Scanlon these exercises build cognitive ability in processing speed, cognitive control and attention. Playing these fun and simple games for as little as 30 minutes a day can promote quicker thinking, improve memory, increase alertness, improve concentration and even elevate a user's mood.

Lumosity was created by Lumos Labs a cognitive R & D company that builds software tools to improve brain health. Lumos was started in 2005 by Kunal Sarkar, Michael Scanlon and David Drescher, all of whom possess impressive scientific and/or business credentials. Lumos Labs also has a scientific advisory board comprised of some of the leading neuroscientists in the world.

30 Sessions To A Better Brain 

Lumosity's system consists of 30 sessions filled with progressively more intense game exercises. The sessions focus on a progressive development in the areas of attention, memory, processing speed, cognitive control. Each session has games designed to improve hone these aspects of cognition. The feedback aspect of the system provides users with “brain performance indexing” scores so that progress and function can be measured. The BPI as it is called reflects a user's skill based on data from half a million results. Increased BPI indicates improvement in an activity and it corresponding cognitive area. A score of 1000 for instance reflects a highly tuned ability in a selected activity.  

As an example “birdwatching” is focused on attention and the user is forced to process visual stimulation into memory. A letter is flashed onto the screen briefly, followed almost simultaneously by a bird in a landscape. The user must remember the letter and pinpoint the location where the bird was shown in order to solve a letter puzzle. Believe me it is a lot harder than it sounds to get a good score. Other exercises include; memory match, monster garden, speed match, spatial speed match, color match, lost in migration and chalkboard challenge among others. The key to success with this system is daily practice and progressively more difficult sessions.

Example of the author's brain growing

Conclusion

Lumosity costs about $80 per year but there is a trial available on the site. The monitization scheme is the down side for me and probably a million other potential users. The exercises are fun and obviously effective in stimulating the suggested areas of cognitive ability. As for Lumosity's extended claim of increased cognitive ability, I obviously cannot say. I do tend to remember the items on the grocery list better and I can now spot a yellow bellied sapsucker while reading a speed limit sign. Seriously, research has shown that exercising brain faculty in this way is helpful and healthful. As for paying $80 to hone these skills, I think free games that emulate Lumosity could probably be aggregated by most users, but progress would be more difficult to track.

Birdwatching is difficult but fun