2006-05-03

Neurofutures that aren't mine

Neurofuturity: A Theory of Change coins a new meaning for neurofuture (the neuroword, not this blog). It's an article from Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry. "Capturing the possible worlds to come is described here as neurofuturity. It is much broader than expectations and includes our feelings towards the future as well as our beliefs."

Another online "neurofuture" that isn't me is this guy, who is spamming the blogosphere selling expensive cognitive brain fitness products. It is most definitely not me, when you're Googling around and finding thousands of hits pushing brain fitness. Rather annoying.

Brain fitness (a.k.a. neurofitness, a neuroword and buzzword that isn't catching on) was debunked in Mental Exercise and Mental Aging: Evaluating the Validity of the "Use It or Lose It" Hypothesis, a review published in Perspectives on Psychological Science that reveals no evidence to support the claim. Not that it's necessarily wrong, but it hasn't been tested using the right approaches (it's all been correlative rather than causative).

Dr. Timothy Salthouse does also conclude, "Despite the current lack of empirical evidence for the idea that the rate of mental aging is moderated by amount of mental activity, there may be personal benefits to assuming that the mental-exercise hypothesis is true."

Maybe that's enough to warrant selling a video game, but it doesn't justify spamming.




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