While I certainly agree that Brain Age doesn't contain puzzles as interesting as would be ones based on cultural, historical, and social activities, the premise of the game is based on neurophysiological data, rather than cognitive or social theory, namely, stimulating blood flow to parts of the brain. Perhaps the advantage of this sort of game is not so much that it teaches anything new, but that it keeps your brain limber enough to learn new things from other sources (e.g. watercooler games).

Right, that's the premise at least. But doesn't this risk portraying videogames as merely instrumental, tools for the consumption of actual cultural matter instead of that very cultural matter itself?

I'd be less bothered by this if Nintendo weren't positioning Brain Age at the front lines of their charge into other player segments.

You are right, Ian, about instrumentalism, but it's hard to avoid, even when parties disagree. For example, in the debate about Tactical Iraqi on WCG, both sides were essentially arguing that the game functioned as a kind of tool. One side said that the game was a device for furthering an unjust occupation; the other said that it was a mechanism that provided protection for Iraqi civilians or at least the working class U.S. soldiers who were themselves the implements of army planners.

Hey Ian-- great article. I couldn't agree more with your argument that we should think about the specific kinds of ways the brain is being exercised in this game.

As you know, it's based on Kumon theory, and I used to teach Kumon math and language skills. Kumon is a fairly controversial approach in education, derided by many for producing machine-like thinking... and this was before it was a videogame! I myself was conflicted about it while I was teaching it... I didn't really want to turn kids into little machines. I'll be interesting to see how this develops. And I for one hate sudoku. :)

Liz: You're right, but at least Tactical Iraqi was advanced (or detracted) as a device for (or against) a specific cause in the material world, rather than a device for an abstract, unspecified, and possibly debatable cognitive gain.

Jane: The relevance to Kumon is important to point out. For those unfamiliar, here's a link, and an explanation.

I find it very amusing that Kawashima's research was initially used by him to suggest that using videogame systems like 'Nintendo' is less cognitively demanding than adding a string of numbers. He went on to suggest his research showed that playing videogames slows development of the frontal lobes of the brain, responsible for things like impulse control, which plays right into parental and political paranoia over model-based media.

Maybe the ESA can take a page out of Nintendo's book of coopting controversy.

Hi Ian,
I think you said very well about your concern. I felt similar thing when I play it and saw the situation in the Japanese market.
After the success of this game, now you see tons of similar product like "Creative right brain", "Brain exercise with Dr. XX" or something like that in Japan. Those are basically a same type of puzzle games with a variety of different theories and approaches.
Brain age made the way for those followers and now people play such mini puzzle games more than before. And I assume the similar things as crossword/sudoku issue are happening.
It is sure that this is a good game with a good design, and people are more aware of serious games because of this success, but this overreaction by audience is not completely comfortable.
You explained very well why I felt unconfortable with this phenomenon.

Aaron, that's a great point, and a connection I didn't know about!

Toru, good points about the knock-off games. We really are starting to see more and more of them. I really don't mind mini puzzle games of this sort, and as you say there has been a good deal of positive momentum thanks to the game, but certainly there is more we can do.

Thanks for bringing up these concerns, Ian -- I just wish we could get them into the broader discourse about media.

As someone who studies in a school of education I'm also dubious about this idea that stimulating blood flow (?!) or merely doing puzzles makes you smarter. The big issue here is *transfer* of knowledge. Cognitive science has demonstrated that expertise in playing chess doesn't necessarily transfer to expertise elsewhere. Nor does studying Latin prepare one better for all kinds of learning, as was previously believed, though it does give you a better understanding of vocabulary with Latin roots. There are many folkloric beliefs about things which make a person "smart" which just don't pan out that way in reality. Same goes for the stuff Steven Johnson talks about.

It's very hard to get people to transfer knowledge from one context to another, so even if there was a benefit in learning to do puzzles, there's no guaranteeing we'd put it to use elsewhere. And as has been mentioned by other commenters, do we really want more people who are better at solving simple math puzzles? I think our resources would be better spent encouraging people to understand complex systems like ecologies and societies. Also, I think we should be learning to take on the perspectives of others who come from different backgrounds, so as to better participate in international affairs. Sudoku and Brain Age don't even try to teach these skills.

Gus, I'm glad you brought up Latin because it's something that I have written about before and recently. As you note, some people (wrongly) hold up Latin as a similar kind of logic puzzle, thanks to its inflection. I happen to think learning Latin is quite valuable, but not as an instrumental tool to prepare people for future logical thinking. Rather, Latin is quite valuable because it is a natural language in which many works of great import to western culture have been written. Learning Latin to read Vergil or to analyze the difference between the Vulgate and the Koine Bible is quite a different perspective from learning Latin to help master the SAT.

So yes, I agree that these two arguments are identical, and equally troubling.

Fascinating article, and some very lucid follow-ups. As a student of Latin, Greek, and Arabic, I have found that these subjects have undeniably given me a training that I have transferred to my job which involves collating large amounts of information and putting structure onto huge swathes of information. the brain thrives on exercise. I think these brain games give one a similar logical training as the ancient languages and can only be a good thing.

I agree with the general premise that games like Brain Age may only give the impression of increased mental ability and not actually aid you in your problem solving or critical thinking skills. Once a person learns the general layout of how the mini-puzzles work, their "Brain Age" or mental ability can see an inflated increase that perhaps is misleading. It is possible that these puzzle games are only teaching poeple how to better solve those specific puzzles. However, I do feel that here is no harm in making a game that not only appeals to a wider audience but also stimulates some form of brain activity in an age where most games only require mindless button pressing to perform senseless or violent acts. Granted, I'm not saying I'm against these games as a form of entertainment, but games like Brain Age seem to have a more respectable persona than something like Grand Theft Auto. However, I also agree that if we create games which draw in a larger audience, they should take fuller advantage of the medium's potential to portray so much more than simple logic puzzles.

I do have to agree with the fact that Brain Age doesn't seem to work for it's overall theorized purpose, simply because it has a limited number of games. It was only a couple of months ago that I actually saw two adults playing this game in a coffee shop and I thought the whole thing was quite ridiculous. One had never played the game before. He kept playing it over and over again, and of course his score got better quite quickly, because he is a gamer and learned the interface rather quickly. However, I happen to know that he is not any more intelligent or better at solving puzzles than he was before playing the game.

Dispite the target audience, I think the game is better suited for small children. They are the ones that could benefit from such repitition. I do think the game can stimulate simple logic skills, but that it can only go so far with this improvement.

Oddly enough, I am a great lover of the sudoku puzzles, as well as crossword puzzles. I think they both work different areas of logic though. Yes, you do not have to be literate to solve a sudoku puzzle, but a blackbelt sudoku puzzle is definitely much more challenging than many crossword puzzles. Sudoku tests only your logic skills; things like the process of elimination, being able to remember where you've already been, and thinking beyond the simple logic of rows and columns (even if it means writing down every possibility in every square). Crossword puzzles focus more on knowledge than logic. They work your memory and teach you (sometimes random) facts, but there is less raw logic involved. When I need to focus on something, I'd much rather do a sudoku puzzle to get my mind thinking than a crossword puzzle. I know I will always eventually be able to figure out sudoku, but sometimes you just don't know the answer to a crossword puzzle.

And thus ends my rambling.

In antiquity, the problem of enhancing mental faculties in general did not go unnoticed as the following passage from wikipedia shows:

"The term "liberal arts" is defined by the Encyclop�dia Britannica Concise as a, "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general intellectual capacities, in contrast to a professional, vocational, or technical curriculum. In Classical antiquity, the term designated the education proper to a freeman (Latin liber, �free�) as opposed to a slave. In the medieval Western university, the seven liberal arts were grammar, rhetoric, and logic (the trivium) and geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy (the quadrivium). In modern colleges and universities, the liberal arts include the study of literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science. " [1]"

I think there's a big gap in most people's understanding of the world that surrounds them concerning the relation between what is general and what is concrete. The brain makes use of generalities all the time. It's what allows you to understand novel situations and resolve new problems. For example, if a person had to relearn counting, adding, substracting, etc. each time new types of objects or environments were encountered, it would take an excruciating long amount of time to solve the simplest math problem. Nothing is experienced in a 'vaccum'. For example, a discrete area of the brain is used for recognizing faces. So if you meet someone new, inevitably your mind seizes on the generic nature of what is in front of you. Your mind does not split the processing of the stimuli into two clearly defined steps, namely forming a 3 dimentional representation of the face, and then seeing it _as_ a face. By analogy, whenever we encounter _anything_ new, the generic aspects of the situation is what interests us. As another example, consider the attempts of some abstract artists at creating 'pure' shapes but accidentally and inevitably making them look like everyday objects. The transfer of prior knowledge to new contexts also happens when we write something using an inhabitual set of muscles. Try writing your name in 'Paint' using the mouse for instance. Though your movements may not be as smooth and accurate as usual, your handwriting may look very similar to the way you normally write. What is transfered is the 'inner representation' of writing movements and the generic aspects of it. And of course the same sort of phenomenon occurs in language, logic, and pretty much every aspect of our life. Basically, intelligence is in large part about seeing the general in the particular.