Putting brain training to the test
Adrian Owen and colleagues ran a six-week online trial with a BBC science programme. Of 52,617 people aged 18 to 60 who joined, 11,430 completed at least two training sessions and both test batteries. One group trained reasoning, planning and problem-solving, a second trained a broad mix of skills, and a control group answered obscure questions using any online resource. Training improved performance on the trained tasks. Improvements on untrained tests were small, with within-test effect sizes for the trained groups no larger than 0.35, and the control group improved by similar amounts. The authors reported no evidence for any generalised improvements in cognitive function.
Adrian Owen and colleagues ran a six-week online trial with a BBC science programme. Of 52,617 people aged 18 to 60 who joined, 11,430 completed at least two training sessions and both test batteries. One group trained reasoning, planning and problem-solving, a second trained a broad mix of skills, and a control group answered obscure questions using any online resource. Training improved performance on the trained tasks. Improvements on untrained tests were small, with within-test effect sizes for the trained groups no larger than 0.35, and the control group improved by similar amounts. The authors reported no evidence for any generalised improvements in cognitive function.
Written from the author manuscript of the paper (PubMed Central/Europe PMC) and the Nature abstract, read 2026-10-23.
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Owen, A. M., Hampshire, A., Grahn, J. A., Stenton, R., Dajani, S., Burns, A. S., Howard, R. J., & Ballard, C. G. (2010). Putting brain training to the test. Nature, 465(7299), 775-778. doi:10.1038/nature09042