One product, BrainHQ from Posit Science, promises everything from “2x faster visual processing speed” and “10+ years in memory” to “more happy days,” “lower medical costs,” “reversal of age-related slowing,” and “more self-confidence.” Another, Cogmed, claims to have improved “attention in many with ADHD,” as well as “learning outcomes in reading and math [for] underperforming students.” Lumosity by Lumos Labs, perhaps the most pervasively marketed of them all, ran ads that included characters from the Pixar film Inside Out.
People are certainly buying the hype—and the games. According to one set of estimates, consumers spent $715 million on these games in 2013, and are set to spend $3.38 billion by 2020.
And they might be wasting their money, according to a team of seven psychologists led by Daniel Simons at the University of Illinois. The team, most of whom have worked on brain-training themselves but have not received money from the industry, spent two years reviewing every single scientific paper cited by leading brain-training companies in support their products—374 in total.
