Tracy Packiam Alloway, PhD

We have all heard it before: the brain is a muscle and we need to exercise it. But is all mental exercise equal?

Before you spend your time and money, there are two important questions you need to ask yourself about the evidence of a brain training product.

1. Are you just getting better at the game?

Let’s say you play PacMan every day for a month. Sure, you’ll have a better score than when you first started out, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve actually trained your brain. All you’ve done is just improve your score in PacMan. A better assessment of whether the game is actually training your brain is to use a ‘benchmark’ test to measure improvement. For example, some psychologists test IQ before and after using a brain training game. If IQ improves, you can reasonably attribute this to playing the training program (presuming all other factors remain constant). I’ve looked at the benefits of Brain Gym*. Their claim is that it improves learning. However, when I looked at reading and math scores before and after using Brain Gym for 13 weeks, there was no improvement.

This leads us to the second question you need to ask yourself:

2. Is my improvement better than someone playing a non brain training game?

It is crucial to have a ‘control’ group. Ideally the control group should be doing something other than brain training. For example, if you want to investigate the benefits of brain training compared to doing crosswords, then the control group should do crosswords for the same amount of time as the group using the brain training program. This allows psychologists to accurately compare the results from the two groups and see if any improvements genuinely reflect the brain training program. In education, one school tried out a brain training program and suggested that learning improved. However, without a control group, we don’t know if this is because the students simply liked playing computer games instead of sitting in a classroom.

*Alloway & Warner (2008) Perceptual & Motor Skills READ

In the last few years, there have been various claims in the media on how simple exercises like jumping jacks and balancing can make children smarter.  In the UK, it was a matter of heated debate when a psychologist suggested that such exercise can actually improve reading skills. So is there any basis to these claims?

Well, yes and no. Let’s first look at the evidence for whether motor skills improve as a result of these exercises. If the exercise is simple like skipping, then you notice improvement in skipping skills very quickly. However, if the exercise is relatively complicated like hockey-puck shooting, then there is very little improvement, even after over 1000 practices!

What about learning? In a recent study, I asked students with learning difficulties and motor problems to take part in a 13-week exercise program. In addition to Brain Gym, they also did different balancing exercises, as well as trained their fine and gross motor skills.

You will probably not be surprised to learn that these students had better motor skills compared to the group that did not take part in this exercise program. However, these increased motor skills did not result in better reading and math scores! These students were still struggling in their academic attainments.

What does this mean? While I am certainly not discouraging exercise, this study, and a growing number like this, illustrate that it’s not enough to ask students to do some jumping jacks and skipping if we actually want to help them do better in the classroom.

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