Brain Training Lowers Car Crashes by 50%

Systematic brain training using software to improve your cognitive performance is a relatively new technique.   The software acts like a brain gym working your memory, visual cognition, speed of processing, numeracy, decision-making skills and the like to make them bigger and stronger.  More than 10 vendors will sell you a package and program ranging in price  from $20 to hundreds.  We have covered most of them here on the Next Brain Blog.

But does it work? And does it work better than solving crossword puzzles, playing video games or other mentally stimulating things we do for fun?  There is compelling evidence that brain training software has impact it is just not clear how much.

So I am always on the lookout for new studies that look at the effectiveness of brain training software.  For example, Posit Science recently publish a synopsis of two studies done in 2010. Note Posit Science sells brain training software but the studies were conducted by academic researchers in neuroscience and psychology.   These are interesting because both studies show improvement in cognitive performance on tasks outside the training software.  One even demonstrated a 50% reduction in at-fault car crashes over a six year period:

“This study looked at crash records for 908 older drivers who trained on a version of Posit Science’s Road Tour exercise six years earlier. Road Tour expands “useful field of view,” how much a person can take in with a single glance. Useful field of view is critical to safe driving: a wider field can help drivers spot dangers in their peripheral vision in time to react. The study authors found that training with the Road Tour technology (called “speed-of-processing training” in the study) cut a driver’s crash risk. In fact, they were responsible for about 50% fewer crashes than their untrained peers. Road Tour is available as part of both the InSight and DriveSharp brain fitness programs.”

This is an important result. It shows that brain training software can improve the cognitive performance of older adults enough to impact an important daily activity.

Interested to hear from readers that use brain training software. How does it improve your cognitive performance in daily life?