What are cognitive skills?
Cognitive skills are the core abilities that allow your brain to learn, read, remember, reason, pay attention, and think. Without them, you wouldn’t be able to perform any of your daily tasks.
Why is it important to train cognitive skills?
Cognitive training (or brain training) is a healthy addition to our daily lifestyles as it encourages neuroplasticity through cognitive stimulation. Cognitive decline is a common process in both healthy ageing, however, cognitive decline is more present in people suffering from dementia, which is one of the most significant public health concerns in ageing populations (Hardy et al, 2015).
* Hardy, J. L., Nelson, R. A., Thomason, M. E., Sternberg, D. A., Katovich, K., Farzin, F., and Scanlon, M. (2015). Enhancing cognitive abilities with comprehensive training: A large, online, randomized, active-controlled trial. PLoS ONE, 10(9).
Which cognitive skills does Enhance train?
The Enhance brain training app engages seven main categories:
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to identify the position or direction of oneself and objects in the environment.
- Memory: The ability to encode, store, and retrieve information.
- Attention: The ability to focus on a discrete relevant stimulus.
- Flexibility: The ability to switch between tasks or strategies in order to adapt to changes in the environment.
- Problem Solving: The ability to identify a problem in the current state and implement the steps required to reach the desired state or solution.
- Processing: The process of receiving, processing, and acting upon incoming sensory information.
- Motor Control: The ability to regulate movements that allow for an interaction with the environment.
Each of these main categories contain from one to three subcategories. You can learn more about them in the game descriptions.
How do you differentiate Enhance from screen-based brain training apps like Lumosity?
Our brain training games differentiate themselves from screen-based apps like Lumosity and Peak insofar as we leverage Virtual reality as the medium. Virtual Reality environments are sensory-rich as they provide proprioceptive, visual, and motor information to the user (Sanchez-Vives et al., 2005), whereas screen-based systems fail to provide body-based information. Immersive Virtual Reality environments offer better learning opportunities than traditional digital formats like a smartphone, tablet, or computer (Krokos et al., 2019).
* Sánchez-Vives et al., (2005). From presence to consciousness through virtual reality. Nat Rev Neurosci.6 (4) : 332-9.
* Krokos, E., Plaisant, C., & Varshney, A. (2019). Virtual memory palaces: immersion aids recall. Virtual Reality, 23 (1), 1-15.
Which VR devices are currently supported?
Currently, we are supporting the Oculus Rift, Rift S, Oculus Quest, and the HTC Vive Focus Plus.
What is a Workout of the Day (WOD)? How long does a WOD last?
A WOD is your daily cognitive training, composed by three games randomly chosen from the game library, which will be different every day. The duration of your daily workout will depend on your settings and preferences. The Enhance mini-games lasts between two and three minutes and a WOD is around a total of 10 minutes per workout.
How do you evaluate my in-game performance?
We use a proprietary game score system, the Enhance Performance Index (EPI), which allows you to keep track of your performance and the development of your skills, compare yourself to other players, which also enables us to provide you with comprehensive feedback. The EPI is an aggregation of weighted performance across all cognitive categories reduced into a single score.
Are your games based on scientific data and research?
Yes, our games are developed and designed by a multidisciplinary team of cognitive scientists, auditory scientists, neuroscientists together with game developers.
Which cognitive skills does “Hide and Seek” assess and train?
Hide and Seek trains spatial orientation skills, and particularly your auditory spatial orientation, as you are required to localize the origin of a sound in a binaural three-dimensional environment. Hide and Seek also engages selective auditory attention, the ability to direct attention to one desired sound while tuning out the rest of auditory objects, as you need to attend exclusively to one sound, while ignoring other distractor sounds.
Which cognitive skills does “React” assess and train?
React contributes to the flexibility category. To play React, you need to categorize approaching objects according to their shape and color into their corresponding portals. Within the flexibility category, React specifically trains both your task switching and response inhibition skills, which are the ability to change strategies and behaviors to adapt to a new context and the ability to actively inhibit a dominant response, by needing to adapt to a changing scenario when the portals change positions and ignoring distractor shapes.
Which cognitive skills does “Memory Wall” assess and train?
Memory Wall is a memory game. Specifically, it is designed to train your visual short-term memory, the ability to temporarily retain a small amount of information for a short period of time. In Memory Wall, you will need to memorize and reproduce a pattern shown in a grid of cubes. As you improve, the game difficulty will increase by adding more cubes in the pattern.
Which cognitive skills does “Pizza Builder” assess and train?
Pizza Builder contributes to the attention category. Specifically, while playing Pizza Builder you are required to engage your divided attention, the ability to simultaneously attent and monitor two or more sources of information. In Pizza Builder you need to prepare several pizzas at the same time and monitor the pizzas at different stages (e.g. assembling, baking,...). Pizza Builder also contributes to the problem solving category, as you need to plan your decision depending on the continuously incoming orders.
Which cognitive skills does “Balance” assess and train?
Balance is designed to train your motor and attention skills. Specifically, you will need to train your divided attention, as you have to ensure the correct number and combination of colored balls on two separated plates.
Which cognitive skills does “Magic Deck” assess and train?
Magic Deck is a memory game. This game particularly trains your episodic memory, a form of long-term memory, the storing and recalling of information for an extended period of time. In Magic Deck, you are required to remember the individual position of cards that contain abstract shapes, and match new cards with the previously shown corresponding pairs.
How many cognitive games will Enhance VR have?
The Enhance game library is continuously growing, as we plan to continually release new games each month.
Is Enhance also suitable for people with cognitive impairments?
Yes, we would like to help every individual to assess, train, and achieve their best possible cognitive state. It has been proven that the use of VR enables a stronger total immersion of body and mind which in return leads to higher cognitive processing and learning outcome compared to 2D learning apps.
Are your games designed for children?
We do not advise for virtual reality to be consumed by users under 13 years of age.
Is the audio also part of the cognitive training?
Our audio tracks will help to bring you to an ideal cognitive state that will enhance your in-game cognitive performance. Using audio for performance enhancement has seen a surge of scientific validation in top scientific journals. Furthermore, the games are accompanied by auditory science-based sounds in combination with principles built on established Dynamic Attending Theory, cutting-edge audio modulation research, and extensive in-house research into auditory cues affecting performance (Woods et al, 2019).
*Woods, Kevin & Hewett, Adam & Spencer, Andrea & Morillon, Benjamin & Loui, Psyche. (2019). Modulation in background music influences sustained attention.
Why do I need to report my sleeping habits?
Sleep deprivation, whether it is total or partial, has shown significant impairments in cognitive performance, for example in working memory and attention tasks (Alhola and Polo-Kantola, 2007). By reporting how many hours you slept, you will be able to see how sleeping habits might be affecting your cognitive performance.
*Alhola, P., & Polo-Kantola, P. (2007). Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 3(5), 553–567.
