Brain Fitness Australia

Enjoy Posit Science free and fun memory games that utilize some of their design principles.

Fast Fun: 60 Second Brain Game

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The Word List Recall game says the average 20 year-old remembers 7 0f the 15 words and the average 80 year-old about 4!

B.F.A. Editor Note: Have you tried the 60-Second Brain Game? Share with us how you did.

Getting it right (or avoiding negative plasticity)

Do you notice that when you don’t get it right in a BFP exercise the very first time, you are given four ways of making sure you get it right?

• Repetition: you get a second attempt to hear the item (but no points)
• Given the solution: if you have failed at the second attempt you are immediately given the answer (and no points!)
• Change of level: and if you keep on getting it wrong then you are taken back a level to get more practice and and certain success? (Though it doesn’t feel too good, does it?)
• The practice button: in some exercises you can practice as much as you like.

Get it right is the message….whenever we learn something, our amazing plastic brain builds new neural connections. (And don’t forget that this program is designed by a neurologist: a neural surgeon, and a specialist in neural plasticity!)

The reason for giving you the correct answer or making sure you are working at a level where you can get it right, is that for the purposes of the BFP task you need to try to discriminate accurately or remember sequentially, or replicate in memory exactly what you have heard seven times out of ten, or whatever criteria is set by the exercise. You need to learn errorlessly as far as possible!

So if we struggled and learned the ‘wrong’ answers in the BFP we would build connections in the brain and leave traces in memory that are muddled or ‘wrong’ (negative plasticity). In the kind of exercises provided by the BFP, struggling with errors is not going to help us get it right next time!

So we are given the practice button or given the answer or taken to a level that we can get right …. without error….. I am errorless at three items in working memory in “Sound Replay” and occasionally four, but so far my frail working memory seldom recalls five items! That’s average for my age group.

I was reading some research recently about children and mathematics performance. Children who were given a math problem and asked to work it out did not perform as well as children who were also given a worked answer as a demonstration…..

What an interesting and varied group of people doing the BFP!
Everyone’s reason for doing the program seems to be meaningful …… Some people are motivated because of their experience of Alzheimer’s Disease, in parents or siblings: but they remain optimistic. “I want to do all I can to prevent having Alzheimer’s. I’m fine right now and I want to stay that way”. Some are fearful, having had painful experiences with loved ones.
“I felt I needed sharpening up”
It seems to me that there is an overall attitude to life in these people which will carry them through. Even those who had bought the program but had not tried it or completed it, seemed to have a view of themselves as having competent inquiring minds and living life reasonably well.
All are busy, and they all have special interests

• “I was returning to the workforce..in the legal area, and felt I needed something to sharpen me up. The story-telling component of the BFP mapped directly onto the work I had to do. I don’t really know if it helped apart from that…. ” These are times of change and challenge.

Some have real passions of very different kinds

• “I paint. I forget everything else. .” This painter has the feeling of total absorption, of complete focus on the work in hand. The landscape he works from challenges his capacities and his skills and there is a good match between them. “I will do the BFP for the rest of my life.”

• “Could you ring back? We are just going ballroom dancing”. [It is mid-day! Among many of the social benefits and enjoyments reported by regular social dancers, improvements in balance and cardiovascular fitness are evident.]

• “I’m a bit sceptical of these kind of programs. But I did it: The BFP was good. I’m preparing for a debate on nuclear energy at the local international centre. My background is international affairs but I don’t know much about nuclear energy… have to start from scratch on the web. One person is playing Penny Wong..” Reading challenging texts is very effective, as is chess, playing a musical instrument and learning new moves when dancing. They are all associated with cognitive change. Remember, challenging mental activity of some kind, each and every day, has a lasting effect, but occasional once a week effort does not.

Some are really young

• “I hadn’t been well..haven’t got Alzheimer’s or anything like that. Just needed to get going. I’m only 36. The BFP was good!”

Some gained confidence

• “Yes, I did it…I decided I wasn’t as dumb as I thought! Must have been good for me as I went with my daughter to do a pole dancing course! I’m nearly 60!” (amazing!)

Some are resourceful and adaptable

• “I wanted to take the program with me as I travel a lot. I rang Posit Science but they have no plans to develop it for the Nintendo DSi. So I do other programs.” His boss developed Alzheimer’s at a young age and suffered badly. This person wants to do what he can to avoid the same fate. “.[Note: Need to change to a laptop or get free iphone app by Posit Science !]

Some are active

• “Yes, I’m very physically active. I do Thai Che and play table tennis.
• “I play bowls a lot.”
• “I go to the gym.”
• “I do my daily walk for an hour.”

K. Erickson and Arthur Kramer (2009) summarise their review of aerobic exercise effects by saying “we can safely argue that an active lifestyle with moderate amounts of aerobic activity will likely improve cognitive and brain function and reverse the neural decay frequently observed in older adults. ”
I think what seems important to all these people that I have talked to is their belief in themselves and their demonstrated view of their own potential….their plasticity, their capacity for change and learning. These views contrast with static conceptions of aging, according to which decline in abilities is fixed and individuals cannot slow its course….
Well done!

A New Story in the narrative exercise of the BFP

The fourth story (after the one on mateship at the zoo) , was in the tradition of Mills and Boon: a potential romance full of hidden promise… Wyndham gazes through the window at Robert, the gardener, (shades of D.H.Lawrence?). In the true tradition of romantic heroes Robert must have been “tall, dark, handsome, enigmatic and taciturn”, just like Mr Darcy……

Half-way through the BFP!

However this was a celebration for me as I have completed half the program. Twenty sessions down and twenty to go! They gave me a different High/Low exercise this time. It was an assessment of speed of processing made since the baseline assessment. My speed has reduced from 29 to 25 ms. which is a 14% improvement. Looks like I made steep progress in the first ten sessions and then reached a plateau. We’ll see what another 20 sessions of High or Low can do.

As I indulged in a reinforcing animation during the exercise (I find myself drifting off thinking of other things!) the animation turned out to be an aeroplane in full flight. Was this a message to keep going? The animations and graphics in general are not exactly “cutting edge”…..everything has a kind of 50′s feel…but it does the job I suppose.

Wish I was going somewhere...

The Magic Number 7 (plus or minus 2):

George Miller wrote about limitations in memory in 1956. He found that the amount of information which can be remembered on one exposure is between five and nine items, depending on the information.

Applying a range of +2 or -2, the number 7 became known as Miller’s Magic Number, i.e.the number of items (like sounds) which can be held in memory, for the short term, at any one time. Others found this to be true of a number of other tasks, such as lists of words or numbers. We can recall, on average, between 5 and 9 items. However we can increase our capacity to remember where for example, human faces are concerned: hair color, hair style, shape of face, facial hair, etc. serve to increase our capacity as we have embedded the face to be remembered in a network of other things that help our recall. Similarly we can remember phone numbers by forming 2 or more groupings. We don’t really remember “seven” numbers. We remember the first group of three and then the other grouping of four numbers. If it is long distance, then we add an area code. So we actually remember 10 numbers by breaking it into groups of three. I watched a self-styled “nerd” on television memorise at speed a shuffled pack of cards. The reporter who was trying to become a member of MENSA could only manage about 20 after training.

Working memory is “an active memory for the short term. It is something that is held active in the focus of attention for the purpose of being acted upon.” Working memory like any form of attention is selective. The searchlight is switched on and focused!

Importantly, working memory is also inhibitory. The attention component suppresses other networks that can interfere in some way with the object of attention.

You can experience all this in either of the following two exercises: the Posit Science game “The Farmers Memory Challenge” is a very good introduction.

THE DUAL-N-BACK training exercise:

I have been playing around with this exercise (which has been available on the Internet) for quite some time. It has tested my patience sorely, but I keep coming back to it. And I just cannot do it! It has some solid scientific evidence and a very interesting cognitive team behind it. Buschkuehl’s team postulates that the n-back task improves working memory — how many pieces of information subjects can keep in their head — as well as the ability to control the brain’s attention. It needs lots of practice (even for the young).

The Posit Science N-back game

THE FARMERS MEMORY CHALLENGE

Posit Science has produced a more user-friendly version,” The Farmer’s Memory Challenge” which is a really good introduction to the complexity of the Dual-n-back. After a few trials I found myself improving and rated in the top 30%. (I was still only able to keep track of about 3-4 items in memory). This result was accompanied by the strange remark that statistically I was probably cheating!

Posit science says “This game is a form of what is known as an n-back procedure, a sensitive measure of your ability to keep track of many things at once.
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The interesting thing about this particular task is that training on it was recently shown to increase fluid intelligence (think IQ).
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Like many of our abilities, working memory normally declines precipitously with age, beginning early in adulthood and affects our ability to remember simple things like lists, names and the specific details of events in our everyday life. This decline happens regardless of our education or intelligence. Posit Science offers clinically proven training programs that can slow or even reverse this pattern of decline!”

Try the Farmer’s Memory game! Whatever age you are…you’ll love it!

“Dear Margaret

Thank you for contacting us! We suggest not focussing on the number of points gained in exercises as this is not an accurate way to assess your progress. As long as you are steadily progressing, this is a positive thing.

Note – there is less room for improvement in Sound Replay and Listen and Do, which is why it appears as though you are progressing slowly. If you start out recalling 4 sounds in sequence and then jump to 5, this is a big improvement in terms of the task itself, but will reflect as a minor improvement on the progress screens.

Keep up the good work!
Sincerely,
Andrea Duff”

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• “We suggest not focussing on the number of points gained in exercises as this is not an accurate way to assess your progress.” That is re-a-lly strange. Why make such a big deal of numbers and bells (like the pokies!), and daily and cumulative totals in the results of every exercise if it is not an accurate way to assess progress? Is it not direct feedback of progress?

• “Note – there is less room for improvement in Sound Replay and Listen and Do, which is why it appears as though you are progressing slowly”. AHA! It is the nature of the task! AND the working memory bottleneck!! “To go from 4 to 5 is a big improvement, but will reflect as a minor improvement on the progress screens.” Is my working memory trainable with prolonged practice…. ?

“Seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken“. Jane Austen, Emma

Let’s look at “The Magic Number Seven”…..

” B.F.A. Editor note: ‘The Magic Number Seven will appear on Monday 18 January 2010. “

Totally demoralised!

That’s how I feel as I go further and further back to simpler and simpler levels in the two working memory exercises, “Sound Replay” and “Listen and Do”. Last session, as I finished the Fishing Story, the program congratulated me on having completed the narrative component, a memory exercise that has many semantic and other supports to aid accurate recall and/or recognition .

But try me on a list of unrelated phonemes/words in auditory memory (recalled in sequence), or sequential auditory/visual instructions with little sequential meaning, e.g. “put the yellow dog….., then put the tall doctor to the left of…..etc.”…….

Can’t do it after three items!

My Working Memory Discrepancy in the BFP

So back I go to the simplest instruction, “Click on Java Cafe, click on the Library…”

Look at the Summary statistics! I simply can’t move up the steps in the two working memory exercises.

And the “Steps” histogram and “Total Score” chart seems misleading. As the “Points by Session” score (below right) shows I am going nowhere quickly.

Steps Histogram

Going backwards!

What is this working memory bottleneck that I seemingly can’t open up?

I have emailed Posit Science for an interpretation of my statistics because there is clearly a huge discrepancy between my performances on the various exercises. Is it the aging brain? Or is it the nature of the exercise?

It is not lack of focus or motivation as I continually think of different ways to rehearse and recall. All to no avail. I must investigate working memory…..

A Buzzword

Working memory is the current “neuro’s” buzzword. Whether you are a neurologist, a neuro-psychologist, a neuro-scientist, a cognitive neuro-scientist, a gerontologist or whatever, working memory is likely to be upfront. That’s good news for people in general, as working memory capacity impinges on all our daily lives, particularly in the digital age! So the more we know about it the better it will be.

At this point in time I feel that generally my memory works not too badly: I can do the regular stuff like driving, cooking, talking about anything and everything (with occasional “senior” moments), progressively learning stuff that I am interested in (with moderate retention) etc. I am at the stage of realising that I have trouble remembering three things: names, books I have just read and I forget what the other one is….

At least I can enjoy reading books several times as if they were new to me!

But my working memory is weak (at least as demonstrated by the BFP exercises). I knew this was likely to happen, so it was merely a confirmation.

The BFP mentions working memory specifically in relation to several of the exercises. I need to know why my retention is so poor, so from among many current publications I have a new book about “information overload” which deals with working memory; so I thought I would attempt to look at working memory more closely in later posts.

As it is close to Christmas, I am making a large batch of shortbread. One lot dispatched to Darwin….steamy and monsoon wet, and the other to Antarctica, cold and icy.

It just gets harder

Hearing loss comes on slowly….it just creeps up on you over time. Typically you end up having to make a big physical effort to be able to communicate and at the same time protect your self esteem so that you don’t make a fool of yourself by getting things wrong. Somehow it seems OK to wear glasses but hearing aids may seem a bit of a no-no?

Do you feel you aren’t hearing conversation properly? Do friends and family say you really need to get a hearing aid? Socially a hearing loss means an inability to effectively participate in the community. After the loss develops into a handicap it will affect all aspects of life including workplace activities. Quite a few BFP users have mentioned hearing aids, or needing to have their hearing tested. And the BFP instructs us to be consistent when doing the program: if you have hearing aids wear them each time.

Improve your quality of life

Hearing aids do actually have an impact on improving your health related quality of life and your well-being. Hearing aids for people with a health care card are free in Australia and the hearing aids that are provided “absolutely do the job, they’re good quality digital hearing aids.” However according to one BFP user, you have to have infinite patience to get through the process of assessments, doctors, administration and government approvals etc.

The average age in Australia for having a hearing aid is 72! However, depending on your occupation, you may have had hearing loss since you were 55. “The enemy of people with hearing loss is background noise. Background noise is a thick deep sound that crashes like a wave over the quiet soft sounds that we need to hear that give words clarity.”

Do your grandchildren have an iPod?

At the National Acoustic Laboratories in NSW some of the testing situations demonstrated that 1 in 4 people are having their iPods at a volume that will do damage. The iPod gives you such a really good seal in the ear canal that there’s no leakage of the sound…..

” B.F.A. Editor Note: As our auditory functions start to decline, many of us give up things we at one time loved, trading in social stimulation for sitting at home. This creates (if you remember from one of Margaret’s previous posts) ‘negative plasticity’. Don’t accept it as “what happens as you get old”. Speak with your GP and stay active!”

High and Low

The direction of the 25 ms sound sweeps are much easier to detect, I find, when the gap between each one is longer. When the sounds are close together I can easily detect the last one, but I have to rehearse the two sweeps in my memory to try to recall the first one….and I can still get it wrong! That’s the limit of my immediate memory storage currently: it is an obvious bottleneck!

There must be interference from the second sound, masking retrieval of the first sound. Of course they get closer together as I progress, (making it difficult again) and back I go to a lower level! But I also found I was drifting away thinking of other things as I have done High and Low so often. It gets harder to concentrate due to familiarity…. but my histogram is consistent, which is more than in some of the other exercises!

Retrieving something from memory (a word perhaps) can often be difficult. That’s the typical “tip of the tongue” phenomenon. Yet if you were given a written list to choose from you would immediately recognise which word you could not remember. Recognition is so much easier than recall! Multiple choice answers are easier than free-recall answers when being tested, (depending on the variation in the multiple choices). If you are talking to someone and can’t remember a word and the right word is given to you, you can recognise that that is what you meant to say! Why can’t we remember it (retreive it), if it is in memory storage?

Is this why we need clear sound models as suggested by the BFP? My “fuzzy” signal-to-noise auditory system may be in for a tune up, I hope! I shall watch with interest.

VISIT MARGARET

” B.F.A. Editor Note: Are you currently doing the Brain Fitness Program Classic or InSight? Pass Margaret your tips and encouragement! ”