“We wanted to demonstrate that we could train someone in the lab, test them in their normal activities, and start evaluating whether there was transfer. “But it was an exciting proof of concept,” he says. Seitz acknowledges that the study had limitations, including a small sample size and no control group. The following season, they also showed improvements on the field: fewer strikeouts and more runs created (a measure of batting performance) compared with their own stats from the previous season and compared with the rest of the league (Deveau, J., et al., Current Biology, Vol. After training, the players improved in their ability to read eye charts in the lab. During the fall, 19 team members came to his lab for 30 training sessions lasting 25 minutes each. He tested the game on a group of people for whom sharp sight is vital: the UC Riverside baseball team. The game presented a diverse set of stimuli, optimized the presentation of those stimuli, used consistent reinforcement, and drew on input from other senses to facilitate visual learning. Hoping to change that, Seitz developed a vision training game called ULTIMEYES that combined multiple proven approaches from the field of perceptual learning. But they often failed to transfer any notable benefits to people outside the lab. Many previous studies of vision improvement had been shown to improve eyesight on laboratory tests, he says. Much of his early work focused on visual perceptual learning. Seitz earned his PhD in cognitive and neural systems from Boston University in 2003 and joined the faculty at UC Riverside in 2008. “I wanted to take what I knew from perceptual learning and apply it to a training program that’s meant to help people in their daily lives,” Seitz says, of how the Brain Game Center began. His current projects span perceptual and cognitive abilities including hearing, vision, and working memory. Along with research scientists from psychology and cognitive neuroscience, his lab includes computer scientists and programmers who design assessments and online brain training games that are scientifically rigorous and fun to play. He launched the Brain Game Center in 2014 to bridge that gap. Along the way, he realized that commercial brain training programs borrowed general concepts from perceptual learning but failed to incorporate the latest scientific discoveries from the field. Seitz’s background is in the field of perceptual learning, the process by which our sensory abilities are improved by experience (imagine a budding musician learning to distinguish between musical notes).
In a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded collaboration with Susanne Jaeggi, PhD, director of the Working Memory and Plasticity Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine, Seitz is recruiting 30,000 volunteers for a memory study to explore what elements of brain-training interventions might improve memory, and for whom. Seitz intends to get to the bottom of that question. “Does cognitive training work or not work? And why do we have paper after paper coming out with mixed results?” asks Aaron Seitz, PhD, director of the Brain Game Center for Mental Fitness and Well-Being at the University of California (UC), Riverside. But the scientific evidence for their effectiveness is muddled at best. Can an online game boost your brainpower? Commercial companies turn tidy profits selling games that claim to improve memory and sharpen thinking skills.
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