Brain training can work when properly targeted…as in this new vision study

Focus­ing the brain on bet­ter vision (The New York Times):

“As adults age, vision dete­ri­o­rates. One com­mon type of decline is in con­trast sen­si­tiv­i­ty, the abil­i­ty to dis­tin­guish gra­da­tions of light to dark, mak­ing it pos­si­ble to dis­cern where one object ends and anoth­er begins.

But new research sug­gests that con­trast sen­si­tiv­i­ty can be improved with brain-train­ing exer­cis­es…”

Study: Improv­ing Vision Among Old­er Adults Behav­ioral Train­ing to Improve Sight (Psy­cho­log­i­cal Science)

• Abstract: A major prob­lem for the rapid­ly grow­ing pop­u­la­tion of old­er adults (age 65 and over) is age-relat­ed declines in vision, which have been asso­ci­at­ed with increased risk of falls and vehi­cle crash­es. Research sug­gests that this increased risk is asso­ci­at­ed with declines in con­trast sen­si­tiv­i­ty and visu­al acu­ity. We exam­ined whether a per­cep­tu­al-learn­ing task could be used to improve age-relat­ed declines in con­trast sen­si­tiv­i­ty. Old­er and younger adults were trained over 7 days using a forced-choice ori­en­ta­tion-dis­crim­i­na­tion task with stim­uli that var­ied in con­trast with mul­ti­ple lev­els of addi­tive noise. Old­er adults per­formed as well after train­ing as did col­lege-age younger adults pri­or to train­ing. Improve­ments trans­ferred to per­for­mance for an untrained stim­u­lus ori­en­ta­tion and were not asso­ci­at­ed with changes in reti­nal illu­mi­nance. Improve­ments in far acu­ity in younger adults and in near acu­ity in old­er adults were also found. These find­ings indi­cate that behav­ioral inter­ven­tions can great­ly improve visu­al per­for­mance for old­er adults.

Learn more:

• Brain Train­ing Pro­gram Eval­u­a­tion Checklist
• Can brain train­ing work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
• The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age