cognitive-games

UNICEF launches interactive digital brain development tool for young children

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children-brain-developmentUNICEF and H&M Foun­da­tion launch an inter­ac­tive dig­i­tal brain devel­op­ment tool for young chil­dren (press release):

“A dig­i­tal tool that inter­ac­tive­ly shows how games and play stim­u­late brain devel­op­ment dur­ing ear­ly child­hood launch­es today. The inter­ac­tive [Read more…] about UNICEF launch­es inter­ac­tive dig­i­tal brain devel­op­ment tool for young children

Rosetta Stone as provider of “technology-based language-learning, reading and brain fitness solutions”

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Rosetta StoneVery inter­est­ing to see how Roset­ta Stone, giv­en its recent acqui­si­tion of Viv­i­ty Labs (devel­op­er of Fit Brains mobile cog­ni­tive games) now iden­ti­fies itself as a ” a lead­ing provider of tech­nol­o­gy-based lan­guage-learn­ing, read­ing and brain fit­ness solu­tions.” [Read more…] about Roset­ta Stone as provider of “tech­nol­o­gy-based lan­guage-learn­ing, read­ing and brain fit­ness solutions”

Upcoming Webinar: The Digital Brain Health & Training Market in 2014

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Webinar digital brain health & trainingWhen: Thurs­day, March 13, 2014 from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM (EDT)

Join this upcom­ing webi­nar, to be held dur­ing Brain Aware­ness Week 2014, to dis­cuss the lat­est mar­ket data and news in the dig­i­tal brain health and brain train­ing space, includ­ing Roset­ta Stone’s acqui­si­tion of Viv­i­ty Labs (devel­op­er of Fit Brains mobile cog­ni­tive games), Bay­er’s glob­al part­ner­ship with Cog­niFit [Read more…] about Upcom­ing Webi­nar: The Dig­i­tal Brain Health & Train­ing Mar­ket in 2014

Protect Your Asset by Being Your Own Brain Fitness Coach

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Last week I had the good for­tune of spend­ing four days in Nue­vo Val­lar­ta, Mex­i­co, with over 300 amaz­ing indi­vid­u­als from 40+ coun­tries who had been named Young Glob­al Lead­ers by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum. The sum­mit agen­da was insight­ful and inspir­ing, con­ver­sa­tions with oth­er par­tic­i­pants always proved to be eye-open­ing and stim­u­lat­ing, and the over­all atmos­phere was con­struc­tive. You can read more about some of those con­ver­sa­tions here.

What I’d like to high­light in this arti­cle is the remark­able (and option­al) activ­i­ty that start­ed off every day at 7 in the morn­ing. Called “Pro­tect Your Asset” [Read more…] about Pro­tect Your Asset by Being Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach

Ten Reflections on Cognitive Health and Assessments

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Let me sum­ma­rize ten high­lights and reflec­tions from stim­u­lat­ing dis­cus­sions on cog­ni­tive health and assess­ments I have had this month so far.

Jan­u­ary 8–9th: Sym­po­sium on Co-Adap­tive Learn­ing: Adap­tive Tech­nol­o­gy for the Aging (details Here), orga­nized by the Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty’s Cen­ter for Adap­tive Neur­al Systems:

1. Cog­ni­tive health is a crit­i­cal fac­tor in over­all health­care, but is often approached in a frag­ment­ed, non-sys­tem­at­ic way. Most speak­ers in the sym­po­sium did men­tion how cog­ni­tive health issues inter­act with their spe­cif­ic areas of focus (aging, Parkin­son’s Dis­ease, trau­mat­ic brain injury, Alzheimer’s…) but there was a lack of a com­mon frame­work and tax­on­o­my to define the prob­lem and iden­ti­fy solu­tions and inter­ven­tions to mea­sure and help main­tain cog­ni­tive health across the lifespan.

2. For exam­ple, Parkin­son’s Dis­ease. Did you know (I did­n’t) that a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of Parkin­son’s patients have well-iden­ti­fied cog­ni­tive impair­ments, most­ly in their exec­u­tive func­tions but also per­cep­tu­al problems?

3. We tru­ly need a Cul­ture of Cog­ni­tive Health, as Ran­dal Koene point­ed out.

4. May online cog­ni­tive games serve as ongo­ing, real-time assess­ment of cog­ni­tive func­tion? Misha Pavel thought so. He also added we may well see “cog­ni­tive exer­cise coach­es” some­time in the horizon.

5. Skip Riz­zo pre­sent­ed how vir­tu­al real­i­ty can help address Post Trau­mat­ic Stress Dis­or­der (PTSD) and even to admin­is­ter inno­v­a­tive cog­ni­tive assessments.

6. My pre­sen­ta­tion, titled The Emerg­ing Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Mar­ket: Sta­tus, Trends and Chal­lenges, is avail­able Here

7. Jan­u­ary 22nd: Con­sumer Reports orga­nized a health sum­mit titled [Read more…] about Ten Reflec­tions on Cog­ni­tive Health and Assessments

Cognitive Ability: Brain Games or Drugs?

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A recent sci­en­tif­ic study is being wel­comed as a land­mark that shows how flu­id intel­li­gence can be improved through train­ing. I inter­viewed one of the researchers recent­ly (Can Intel­li­gence Be Trained? Mar­tin Buschkuehl shows how), and con­trib­u­tor Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon adds her own take with the great arti­cle that fol­lows. Enjoy!

Ref­er­ence: Jaeg­gi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Jonides, J., & Per­rig, W. J. (2008). Improv­ing Flu­id Intel­li­gence With Train­ing on Work­ing Mem­o­ry. Pro­ceed­ings of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, 105(19), 6829–6833

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What is intelligence? 

Intel­li­gence is a con­cept dif­fi­cult to define as it seems to cov­er many dif­fer­ent types of abilities.

One def­i­n­i­tion dis­so­ci­ates between crys­tal­lized intel­li­gence or abil­i­ties and flu­id intel­li­gence. Crys­tal­lized intel­li­gence refers to the knowl­edge acquired through­out life such as vocab­u­lary. Flu­id intel­li­gence is the abil­i­ty that allows us to adapt to new sit­u­a­tions or problems.

[Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Abil­i­ty: Brain Games or Drugs?