at baseball<\/em>.<\/p>\nTo be a little bit technical, I’m glad if I see “near transfer”: that is, chess training helps my players get better at speed chess. But I care about “far transfer”: that is, chess training helps my players spot the best place to force an out during a tricky fielding play.<\/p>\n
Better and Better<\/h2>\n
This research team — led by Nikolaus Steinbeis — included some extra steps as well. I’m DELIGHTED to see that this study…<\/p>\n
4. Includes a plausible comparison:<\/h3>\n
Researchers often\u00a0take a worrisome shortcut. They try out a Cool New Thing — say, a curriculum, or a pedagogical strategy. When students learn more, they say: “look, our Cool New Thing enhanced learning.”<\/p>\n
But this claim disguises a logical flaw. The benefits could come from doing SOME New Thing, not\u00a0THIS New Thing.<\/p>\n
To overcome this logical flaw, researchers should have\u00a0an “active control group.” That is: some participants try THIS new thing, while another group tries a PLAUSIBLE NEW ALTERNATIVE thing.<\/p>\n
If one group benefits more than the other, we can say that — yup — the change came from the curriculum itself, and not just from the newness.<\/p>\n
5. Psych + Neuro<\/h3>\n
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if reseachers BOTH checked out psychological measures (“do the students learn more?”) AND neurobiological measures (“do their brains physically change?”).<\/p>\n
Well, I’m happy to report that Team Steinbeis did ALL OF THESE THINGS.<\/p>\n
1: The study included 250+ children, age 6-13. That’s not a HUGE number, but it’s noticeably larger than most studies.<\/p>\n
2: They tested participants at the end of the study, and again a YEAR later. In my experience, very few studies have that kind of time horizon.<\/p>\n
3: They checked to see if their cognitive control game improved participants’ cognitive control (“near transfer”). AND, they also check if it helped their learning, mental health, decision making, creativity, and resilience in the face of COVID stressors (“far transfer”).<\/p>\n
4: This study included an active control group. Half the students played a video game with instructions that focused on improving their cognitive control<\/strong>. The other half played the same video game with instructions that focused on improving their response time<\/strong>. That’s a plausible alternative, no?<\/p>\n5: Researchers scanned relevant brain regions — inferior frontal gyrus, cingulo-opercular and fronto-parietal networks — to see if the training changed structure or function. (Don’t worry: I have only a dim understanding of what those words mean, and I’ve been in this field since 2008.)<\/p>\n
Results, PLEASE<\/h2>\n
I’ve gone into more detail than usual because I want you to see why I find this study helpful and persuasive. As far as I can tell, this team has done everything right.<\/p>\n
If training cognitive control helps students, we should see meaningful<\/strong> differences in far transfer<\/strong> effects — and in brain structure or function<\/strong> — after a year<\/strong>. This study design will let us see that.<\/p>\nSo, their results?\u00a0Close to nothing<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n- Cognitive control training didn’t<\/em> help students learn more<\/strong>, or make better decisions<\/strong>. (Far transfer)<\/li>\n
- It didn’t make them more creative<\/strong>. (Also far transfer)<\/li>\n
- It didn’t didn’t change relevant brain structures<\/strong>, or the function of those structures<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Now, the training did help students do better at tests of cognitive control<\/em> — even after a year. But we don’t really care about cognitive control on its own — <\/em>that’s simply near transfer<\/strong>.\u00a0We care about cognitive control because it usually helps with learning, and creativity, and so forth.<\/p>\nThis research tells us: untrained cognitive control might predict academic success. But increasing cognitive control with computer game training does not result in greater academic success — or greater anything else.<\/p>\n
In the language of my starting anecdote: my players got better at chess, but they didn’t get better at baseball. And — as the coach — I care about baseball.<\/p>\n
The Big Picture<\/h2>\n
The idea that we can “train our students’ brains” has a lot of intuitive appeal. Perhaps because the\u00a0claim\u00a0includes the word “brain,” it gets lots of hopeful attention. (Because it includes the potential for enormous profits, it has lots of economic appeal as well.)<\/p>\n
I wanted to focus on this study because it does such a careful job of rebutting that claim: at least as long as “cognitive control” is the particular element we’re trying to train.<\/p>\n
In the future, if someone brings a brain training program to your attention, consider this research example. If that someone’s research method doesn’t include all of the steps above, you might hesitate before you invest scarce time and money in this approach.<\/p>\n
Better, instead, to focus on teaching history, science, tuba — and baseball.<\/p>\n
\nGanesan, K., Thompson, A., Smid, C. R., Ca\u00f1igueral, R., Li, Y., Revill, G., … & Steinbeis, N. (2024). Cognitive control training with domain-general response inhibition does not change children\u2019s brains or behavior.\u00a0Nature neuroscience<\/i>,\u00a027<\/i>(7), 1364-1375.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imagine for a moment that I’m coaching college baseball. I’ve noticed that my players\u00a0have lots of specific skills, but lack the ability to make strategic decisions from an above-the-playing-field perspective. How can I help them improve? Suddenly I think: aha! I’ll have my boys of summer learn chess. What better way to train them up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":8184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[245,19,246],"class_list":["post-8188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-brain-training","tag-skepticism","tag-transfer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8188"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3205538,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8188\/revisions\/3205538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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