Method for adaptive training of short term memory and auditory/visual discrimination within a computer game: Key Neurotech Patent #13

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adaptive-training
– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 6,599,129

Today we are shar­ing a 2003 cog­ni­tive train­ing patent assigned to Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing Corp.

U.S. Patent No. 6,599,129: Method for adap­tive train­ing of short term mem­o­ry and auditory/visual dis­crim­i­na­tion with­in a com­put­er game

  • Assignee(s): Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing Corp.
  • Inventor(s): William M. Jenk­ins, Michael M. Merzenich, Steven L. Miller, Bret E. Peter­son, Paula Tallal
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Neu­roCog­ni­tive Training
  • Issue Date: July 29, 2003

SharpBrains’ Take:

The ‘129 patent builds on Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing’s port­fo­lio relat­ing to lan­guage train­ing and devel­op­ment.  The ‘129 patent describes approach­es that tie togeth­er visu­al and audi­to­ry tech­niques to not only improve a user’s abil­i­ty to deci­pher and under­stand lan­guage, but also enhances work­ing mem­o­ry by train­ing the user to recall and match phonemes (basic lin­guis­tic units). Despite hav­ing what may be con­sid­ered to be a rel­a­tive­ly small total num­ber of claims (7), the teach­ings of the ‘129 patent that syn­the­size audio and visu­al com­po­nents in lan­guage train­ing, along with an inde­pen­dent claim that broad­ly pro­tects the inven­tive con­cept are amongst the fac­tors mak­ing the ‘129 patent a key non-inva­sive neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent.

Abstract:

A method for train­ing of audi­to­ry and graph­i­cal dis­crim­i­na­tion in humans, and a human’s short term mem­o­ry, is pro­vid­ed with­in an ani­mat­ed game envi­ron­ment. The method pro­vides a num­ber of stim­u­lus sets, each stim­u­lus set hav­ing sim­i­lar sound­ing phonemes asso­ci­at­ed with graphemes. Upon ini­ti­a­tion of a tri­al, a grid of tiles is pre­sent­ed to a sub­ject. The sub­ject selects the tiles, one at a time. As the tiles are select­ed, an asso­ci­at­ed phoneme is pre­sent­ed to the sub­ject. The sub­ject clears away tiles by pair­ing them with iden­ti­cal tiles. When all the tiles in a tri­al are cleared, the sub­ject is either pro­mot­ed or demot­ed in skill lev­el. Promotion/demotion varies the num­ber of tiles pre­sent­ed, the phonemes used with­in each tri­al, and the amount of audio pro­cess­ing that is applied to the phonemes.

Illus­tra­tive Claim 1. A method for adap­tive­ly train­ing a sub­jec­t’s work­ing mem­o­ry by pre­sent­ing a plu­ral­i­ty of tiles with­in a video game envi­ron­ment, the plu­ral­i­ty of tiles play­ing a plu­ral­i­ty of phonemes when select­ed, each of the plu­ral­i­ty of tiles hav­ing a cor­re­spond­ing tile that plays the same audi­to­ry phoneme, the method comprising:

  1. upon selec­tion of a first one of the plu­ral­i­ty of tiles, play­ing a first phoneme, and dis­play­ing the first phone­me’s asso­ci­at­ed grapheme;
  2. upon selec­tion of a sec­ond one of the plu­ral­i­ty of tiles, play­ing a sec­ond phoneme;
  3. if the first and sec­ond phonemes are the same, and are select­ed sequen­tial­ly, remov­ing both the first and sec­ond one of the plu­ral­i­ty of tiles with­out dis­play­ing the sec­ond phone­me’s asso­ci­at­ed grapheme; and
  4. if the first and sec­ond phonemes are not the same, retain­ing both the first and sec­ond one of the plu­ral­i­ty of tiles until they are select­ed sequentially.

To learn more about mar­ket data, trends and lead­ing com­pa­nies in the dig­i­tal brain health space –dig­i­tal plat­forms for brain/ cog­ni­tive assess­ment, mon­i­tor­ing and enhance­ment– check out this mar­ket report. To learn more about our analy­sis of 10,000+ patent fil­ings, check out this IP & inno­va­tion neu­rotech report.