Crebrum Diversions

The following research studies the effects of distractions on working memory in order to test this theory. Given the research, it is hypothesized that information processing will be adversely affected by distractions.

• Brain storm ways in which they may practise prioritising some tasks as more important than others. It may also be helpful to break activities up into manageable junks.

Attention and memory can improve by acknowledging and letting go of wandering thoughts, Wei mentions.

Your brain fitness, more so than other parts of your body, is crucial for your quality of life. Why? Because in the brain is where your consciousness resides. The thing that makes you... you... is there. There's nothing more scary to suffer from a debilitating cognitive decline that makes you lose yourself.

For individuals looking ahead to the future, even to plan something small like a vacation is difficult with their frontal lobe damage. These difficulties are not for everyone with frontal lobe damage, but have been observed in numerous people. "Planning requires the ability to look ahead in time, generate hypothesis for

Information in working memory is delicate and easily disappears, in order to be retained it needs to be kept activated. However, if new information does not receive an appropriate amount of attention, activation will quickly diminish. One strategy to help keep information activated in working memory for longer than 20 seconds, a person can review the information mentally (Dingfelder, 2005). Teachers can and do help students perform this review of information during classroom lessons. Once the teacher stops the lesson to ask students if they have any questions, they are giving students a few seconds to contemplate and mentally review the information they have just learned. Another method that teachers can use to assist students with retaining

The benefits of brain training are important especially as our life progresses. Degenerative diseases can be slowed if your brain is fit and healthy. Your quality of life will be higher and you will not lose vital functions as you get older. We all know how frustrating it is when we cannot remember something.

There is no conclusive evidence as to whether or not cognitive training tasks, or brain games, are effective. Companies like Lumosity offer their users different games that target specific cognitive functions: memory, spatial awareness, problem solving, attention, reasoning, and more. Over time, the continued use of the games are supposed to improve cognition, and there are studies that show the effectiveness of the training; however, there are also studies that show how the training is not effective at all. With brain games being a new field of study, there are not many studies available, so there are many discontinuities among results. The purpose of this paper is to explore the different findings from various studies of brain games and their efficacy, and offer insight as to why the discrepancies exist.

This tasks requires participants to be trained initially (involves only two tasks) which improves performance on the task switching test itself (Brom & Kliegel, 2014). Task switching task works in combination with task specific strategies improves prospective memory by lowering the executive load and help improve goal- directed behaviors (Brom & Kliegel, 2014). The best strategy to apply is the implementation intention strategy (IMP), refers to the “If- then planning” that provides a full descriptive plan on the pros and cons for initiating or terminating a particular future action (the where, when and how) (Brom & Kliegel, 2014). This strategy reduces the prospective memory task demands and helps older adults recall essential information for future activities. Furthermore, regular task switching training is a promising intervention that can act as a buffer against prospective memory failures in old age (Brom & Kliegel,

The expansive age range brought diversity to the trial to test generalization to the public. With adults’ aged 18 to 60, the intervention tested the ability to increase cognitive skills in those with growing brain capacity, as well as declining memory. In addition, the large sample size of 11,430 allowed for greater diversity allowing for universal application of the results (Owen et al., 2010). Furthermore, the six-week time frame allowed for an investigation into the immediate results. Since most people prefer for results to start up front, a short-term study has the strength of foreseeing the likelihood of appeal to the public. Many adults lead hectic lifestyles and dedicating time to an activity that doesn’t produce results after six weeks will be looked at as a waste of time. In addition, researchers discovered from calculations that intense online cognitive training would need to occur for four years before scores noted significant improvement (Owen et al., 2010). Owen’s study proves to be the strongest research due to the extensive age range, sample size, and the appropriate length to test if the time investment is dignified

This research tries to discover whether mindfulness training improves working memory capacity and GRE performance while reducing mind wandering. The main independent variable is the mindfulness-training course that the participants took while the dependent variables included the presence or lack of decreased mind-wanderings and/or the presence or lack of improved cognitive performance. The relationship expected was that mindfulness training helps academic performance and decreases distractions during performance. The research methodology used was experimental. Researchers were able to observe the changes in cognitive capacities of the participants and improvements in task focus and performance. The conclusion states, “Cultivating mindfulness

The notion that the brain power could be optimized through the use of training was first proposed by Torkel Klingberg (Olesen, Westerberg, & Klingberg 2004). Since the idea was initially proposed, many researchers have joined in on the research. The earliest studies on brain training focused on healthy adults of normal brain function. These subjects were practiced memory tasks for five weeks. This study used fMRI to measure neural activity in the subjects before, during, and after completing the memory tasks (Olesen et al.,

Baird et al. has a fourfold hypothesis: mind wandering, that allows the creative process, will be hindered by increased attentional demands; less attention demanding tasks will yield greater creativity; any creativity yielded will not be a result of further focusing on the prior task; repeated exposure to the same problems, not an increase in problem solving ability, is responsible for any improvement in performance (1118). The hypothesis sets the stage to find the best type of activity to do during a break to maximize creativity.

One of the largest arguments against brain training is that the benefits of training are not applied to real life. Essentially, opponents to brain training are arguing that brain training is like teaching to the test. Participants do well on the “exams” because that was what they were trained for. Conversely, once participants are sent out into the real world, they are unable to apply what they learned to tasks that differ from those on the test. While intimal brain training studies failed to demonstrate real world application, more recent studies have proven

There is a widely held belief that commercially available computerized brain-training programs improve cognitive function. 2 Although society has accepted this correlation of “brain games” and increased cognitive ability, it has yet to be proven.1 Regardless of this, there has been a recent spawn of enterprises dedicated to creating these games. Of these enterprises, the most well-known companies are Lumosity and Brain Age.1 These companies even argue that brain training is as good as physical training.4 Websites like