| scottie said: Impulsivity, please get some variety of degree or other qualification about this before you open your mouth, or at least check wikipedia :P "I can't think of anything anyone could learn from Brain age for instance. It does indeed use thought, but it doesn't teach any skills/knowledge. There is a difference between trying to pop balloons in numerological order quickly and learning about the History of Germany from Carmen San Diego." Correct, there is a difference. Memorising facts is recognised as the lowest form of learning or brain development. Just because you can't express to a friend what you have learnt, it does not mean that it isn't increasing your mental capacity. Brain Age or Professor Layton and the Curious Village (3rd party DS) is what I would want in an educational game. Unless I wanted to learn something specific, like a language. Oh, but Nintendo make games like that too :P |
Those "speed test" games are subject to drastically diminishing returns. On games like Hot Brain or Brain age or whatever else I can very quickly get the top score on almost all of the "tests" and then...what? I mean really, how is anyone "learning" anything by popping balloons with numbers quickly? That is more or less a reaction test after a certain point.
Most people and even most children do not have a whole lot of malleability when it comes to innate intelligence which is more or less what IQ tests and even a lot of the speed tests in those games are addressing. Sure there is a range of performance and it can be increased slightly, but doing repetitive mini games with numbers certainly isn't going to do that. This idea that you can somehow "increase your mental capacity" is only true if you're talking about 10% or so over a lifetime.
Facts and concepts on the other hand are learnable by everyone even though obviously the very smart will learn them faster. Finding out Lima is in Peru is a concrete gain AND most complex games like say...Carmen San Diego also require the use of deductive logic which is certainly higher on the mental development hierarchy then quickly ordering number sets. If you think a mini game that asks you to remember 4 sounds and repeat them is more intellectually useful then a game that asks you to solve complex problems, learn new facts, and synthesize solutions you are only kidding yourself in order to benefit your opinion of Nintendo.
Feel free to disprove me by finding an example of someone who taught themselves enough to go from a 1000 type score on the SAT to a 1400+ (the 98th percentile gifted or better range) or who became drastically smarter (read, more then a nominal value like 10%) through simplistic mental exercises...or any other method for that matter. The Malleability of intelligence has stark limitations that are set in place in early childhood. There is very recent data that actually suggests intellect has something to do with the nature of differential brain development between the brilliant and the average. This difference relates primarily to the thickness of the cortex (it is thinner in smart kids before 9 so they have more room to make connections) and these differences persist throughout life barring injury or eventual disease.
Basically the idea that Big Brain Academy will in any way make you smarter is a myth. At best it will make you slightly better at the reflex portion of the games, but in terms of any general increase in intelligence you'd be better off playing sudoku, reading or doing any number of other things.
PSN ID: ChosenOne feel free to add me
