A Workout for Your Brain, on Your Smartphone
By KIT EATON
Published: June 12, 2013
I often say I have a bad memory. In fact, it is perfectly possible for
me to lose track of what I’m writing in the middle of a ... um ... never
mind. To improve my memory and enhance my other brain skills, I love
doing mental math, logic and word puzzles. Nowadays, my smartphone hosts
a whole range of tools to help with this.
Brain Trainer Special can feel more like a set of games than serious mental exercise.
In Fit Brains Trainer, graphs track your performance
over time in areas like memory and concentration.
Luminosity Brain Trainer is split into several
sessions of three games each that are supposed to help you improve your
memory, problem-solving ability or flexibility of thinking
Lumosity Brain Trainer, free on Apple’s iOS, is one of the better-known brain-training apps.
It is split into several sessions of three games each that are supposed
to help you improve your memory, problem-solving ability or flexibility
of thinking. The games are played against the clock, and they are all
different.
One challenging game shows two colored words on the screen, each the
name of a color. Your task is to read one word and tap on “match” if the
color it describes is the color the second word is written in. It
sounds easy, but your brain is easily fooled by reading the word
“yellow” and ignoring the fact that it’s written in red. Other games ask
you to solve arithmetic puzzles or replicate patterns of colored
squares from memory.
The hope is that if you do about one session a day, practicing the
different memory and thinking tasks in the games, you will improve your
skills. To track your progress, you get a “brain profile” that charts
details like speed, problem-solving and memory.
Lumosity is likable and simple, but there’s a catch: only five sessions
are free. You have to pay to unlock more, along with some other
functions, such as comparing your scores against averages for your age
group. Yearly access costs $10.
Android users might enjoy Brain Trainer Special, free at the Google Play store. Like Lumosity, this app contains games
aimed at honing different brain skills. But it is much simpler in
design and has fewer games. It is also less structured. You could choose
to play the analytics game, where you have to spot the missing number
in a sequence, many more times than the “phone numbers” memory game.
A bar chart tracks your previous scores so you can see your progress.
It’s more fun than Lumosity — maybe too much so. It feels more like a
game than serious mental exercise, and that might not suit your tastes.
Mind Games, free on Android, is similar to Brain Trainer, but it has a few added niceties,
like a schedule feature that you can set to remind you to play. Its
games cover a broad range of tasks, like expanding your vocabulary and
assisting your spatial memory.
An offering that really seems serious about the brain training task is Fit Brains Trainer, free on iOS. Its games and puzzles,
aimed at stretching and improving your mental agility, lead you through
various tasks. Observation, estimation and mental math skills, for
example, are tested in a game where drops of color fall down the screen
into graphical paint tins. When time runs out, you tap to indicate
whether one tin caught more, less or the same number of drops than the
other.
Graphs track your performance over time in areas like memory and
concentration. Mind Games is carefully designed, and it guides you
through each task in a less confusing way than some rivals. But to
unlock its full features and the complete range of mind games, you have
to pay. It costs $5 for three months or $10 for a year.
The Clockwork Brain, free on iOS, is great to look at
and includes an upbeat cartoon robot teacher to explain the sections.
It doesn’t, however, offer the detailed statistics on your progress that
its rivals offer.
The Clockwork Brain games are similar to those on other apps mentioned
here, but they’re a little trickier. Tap on the “how to play” button
before you begin, or you might find yourself playing a memory or math
game against the clock with no idea what you have to do. The free
version has a decent range of games, but to get more you have to pay.
Typical expansion packs cost $1 each.
Quick Call
Vesper ($5) is a new minimalist note-taker
for iOS. You can associate tags and even photos with notes, making
Vesper useful for tasks like organizing recipes. It has fewer features
than some similar apps but is simple to use.
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