Lumosity how many users

In , the Stanford Center on Longevity published an open letter signed by 69 international neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists saying that there is no compelling scientific evidence that playing brain games improves cognitive abilities in everyday life, although isolated benefits could exist.

Two years later, a team of psychologists with expertise in intervention research, reviewed every scientific study cited by major brain-training companies in support of their products. As well as trawling the company websites, the reviewers also looked at published papers referenced on www. The review, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest , did not only question how the evidence was reported and interpreted, but the way many of the studies were designed.

The criticism included small sample sizes, inadequate control groups and cherry picking research outcomes to report. So, if the science is so flawed, why do people feel the need to train their brains with these apps and games?

Debra Abbate, a year-old woman from the US, uses the Elevate app daily, usually in the mornings when she wakes up. An experimental study from found that older drivers that went underwent computer-based cognitive training for memory, reasoning, or speed of processing, were less likely to be involved in a car accident in the following six years.

In another attempt, a group of 60 to year-olds were asked to play a custom video game, NeuroRacer , over the course of a month. One of Lumosity's big selling points is that each person gets a "training plan" designed to fit their needs.

The first step is to tell Lumosity exactly what you want to work on. There are five key areas you can focus on. Within each area, things get very specific. Can't ever find your keys? Try checking "recalling the location of objects.

Lumosity is popular among some people struggling with A. Speed is a major focus for Lumosity, with many games designed to help the user find the balance between speed and accuracy.

Flexibility seems to be the "improvement area" that is defined the most broadly. At this point, you might get a little skeptical. Can a computer game really help you "dissect complex arguments" or "determine the best course of action"? Lumosity promises that it will improve your life quite broadly, but it's more likely that it will just make you better at certain narrow tasks — like playing the games themselves.

There's some evidence that it can produce "short-term, specific training effects that do not generalize" — a small if fleeting boost to your working memory capacity, for example. But this can hardly be confused with achieving your "full potential. Once your personal program has been set up, the first thing to do — and you can do this part without paying — is take some quick tests to establish a baseline in each core area.

That way, Lumosity can track your progress as you play or "train". As you train, you will almost certainly see yourself improve. The numbers of Lumosity's "Brain Performance Index" — tweeted by a random user here — will invariably go up the more you play.

And that's a good thing — emotionally, if not intellectually. Lumosity also lets you see how you stack up to others a random user is shown here. One study found that this social element might be key: Lumosity-like games could "positively impact one's sense of social connectivity and self-efficacy. But "successful cognitive training programs will elicit effects that generalize to practical tasks for extended periods of time," and that's something that has not yet been proven true for Lumosity.

Improved BPI is not associated with greater applied intelligence. Before Lumosity calculates your BPI, you have to play some games. Here's the dashboard you see when Lumosity is ready to go. Clicking "start training" will launch the first game.

You will see different games depending on what you selected as your priorities in the first steps. We asked our Data Science team to dig into the data and tell us some of the most interesting -- and sometimes surprising -- facts about Lumosity users.

In addition to English, our program is available in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and German across our online and mobile apps, as well as in Korean online.

This is higher than the national average reported by the U. Also represented in the Lumosity community are people who work in tech, sales, law, the military, social services, and entertainment and sports. You're increasingly training on your phones and tablets, with mobile users now accounting for a little over half of you.

Good thing we're up to more than 25 games on our iOS and Android apps -- and planning to add even more mobile games in the coming months.