美国国家公共电台 NPR Brain Game Claims Fail A Big Scientific Test

Brain Game Claims Fail A Big Scientific Test 

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It's an appealing idea - spend a few minutes a day playing one of those brain-training games, and you'll be smarter and more focused. You'll even stave off memory problems as you age. The question is, can brain games really do all of that? A new evaluation² of the scientific evidence finds little reason to believe they can. NPR's Jon Hamilton reports.

JON HAMILTON, BYLINE³: The evaluation is a response to a very public disagreement. In 2014, a group of scientists published an open letter objecting to the marketing⁴ claims made by companies that offer brain training. A few weeks later, another group of scientists published a rebuttal. They said there was good science showing that brain games work.

DAN SIMONS: So you had two consensus⁵ statements, each signed by many, many people that came to essentially⁶ opposite conclusions.

HAMILTON: That's Dan Simons, a psychology⁷ professor at the University of Illinois. Simons decided⁸ to take a close look at the research on brain training, so he and a handful of other scientists began reviewing more than 130 studies.

SIMONS: And what we did was went through each paper and tried to look at the kind of evidence it provided.

HAMILTON: How big was the study? Did it have an appropriate control group? The results appear in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest. And Simon says what the team found was disappointing.

SIMONS: Many of the studies did not really adhere to what we think of as the best practices for intervention⁹ designs.

HAMILTON: Some were really small. Others compared the people who played games with people who did nothing. Simons says there were some studies that showed brain games can have an effect.

SIMONS: You can practice, for example, scanning baggage at an airport and looking for a knife. And you get really, really good at spotting that knife, but not necessarily spotting other things.

HAMILTON: Or at solving math problems or remembering your grocery list. And Simons says those are the improvements many people hope for when they start playing brain games.

SIMONS: We don't care if you practice these games and then you get better at doing some weird¹⁰ computer task. What you want to do is be better able to function at work or at school.

HAMILTON: Simon says that's not a realistic expectation - at least not now.

SIMONS: It'd be really nice if you could play some games and have it radically¹¹ change your cognitive¹² abilities. And it's still possible that it might be. It's just that the studies up to this point really don't provide strong evidence.

HAMILTON: George Rebok is a psychologist at Johns Hopkins who has spent two decades researching brain training. He says the evaluation is fair, and he agrees with many of its criticisms.

GEORGE REBOK: We've all been aware of some of the methodological shortcomings of the studies, and I think it really helped raise the bar in terms of the level of science that we must aspire¹³ to.

HAMILTON: But Rebok remains¹⁴ optimistic that brain-training programs based on rigorous science will prove their value someday. He says there have already been some hints of success, including one of his own studies that looked at thinking and learning in older people.

REBOK: We gave people only 10 sessions of initial training, and we were seeing effects 10 years down the road.

HAMILTON: Now, Rebok would like to try a training program that lasts for years and pushes people much harder than most brain games do.

REBOK: If we can implement¹⁵ that long range, I think there will be, you know, a big dividend¹⁶ eventually.

HAMILTON: In the meantime, the Federal Trade Commission is going after brain-training companies that make scientifically unsupportable claims. In January, the company behind Luminosity (ph), a sponsor of NPR programs, agreed to pay a $2 million fine and revise its marketing practices. Jon Hamilton, NPR News.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 evaluation   

n.估价，评价；赋值

参考例句：

• I attempted an honest evaluation of my own life.我试图如实地评价我自己的一生。
• The new scheme is still under evaluation.新方案还在评估阶段。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

5 consensus   

n.(意见等的)一致，一致同意，共识

参考例句：

• Can we reach a consensus on this issue?我们能在这个问题上取得一致意见吗？
• What is the consensus of opinion at the afternoon meeting?下午会议上一致的意见是什么？

6 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

7 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

8 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

9 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

10 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

11 radically   

ad.根本地，本质地

参考例句：

• I think we may have to rethink our policies fairly radically. 我认为我们可能要对我们的政策进行根本的反思。
• The health service must be radically reformed. 公共医疗卫生服务必须进行彻底改革。

12 cognitive   

adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的

参考例句：

• As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大，他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
• The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。

13 aspire   

vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于

参考例句：

• Living together with you is what I aspire toward in my life.和你一起生活是我一生最大的愿望。
• I aspire to be an innovator not a follower.我迫切希望能变成个开创者而不是跟随者。

14 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

15 implement   

n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行

参考例句：

• Don't undertake a project unless you can implement it.不要承担一项计划，除非你能完成这项计划。
• The best implement for digging a garden is a spade.在花园里挖土的最好工具是铁锹。

16 dividend   

n.红利，股息；回报，效益

参考例句：

• The company was forced to pass its dividend.该公司被迫到期不分红。
• The first quarter dividend has been increased by nearly 4 per cent.第一季度的股息增长了近 4%。