- Near: same stimuli or rules.
- People feel progress on the trained game.
- Reviews are mixed and often disappointing for far transfer.
- Speed on one mapping can be strategy, not g.
- Pre-registered outcomes, active controls, and tasks that are not clones of the trainer.
- Enjoy paired-associates-lite or n-back if you like them.
What is near versus far transfer?
Near: same stimuli or rules. Far: a different domain (for example, n-back to algebra). Marketing loves far; evidence is picky.
Why do brain-training ads overpromise?
People feel progress on the trained game. Feeling is not a new Wechsler FSIQ. Placebo and test–retest inflation are real.
Does working-memory training raise IQ?
Reviews are mixed and often disappointing for far transfer. A running-span lite PB is still a web PB.
What about “I got faster so I am smarter”?
Speed on one mapping can be strategy, not g. Inhibitory and switch games show the same trap.
How should scientists test transfer?
Pre-registered outcomes, active controls, and tasks that are not clones of the trainer. This explainer is not a methods paper, and the games are not the experiment.
How should I practice here?
Enjoy paired-associates-lite or n-back if you like them. Do not expect a transcript, a raise, or a clinical IQ from streaks.
❓ People also ask
What Is Attention Control?
Attention control is the skill of holding a current goal and filtering noise — a side conversation, a flashing tab, or a flanking arrow on a screen. It overlaps working memory and inhibition, yet it is not a synonym for IQ, and a browser hit count is not a diagnosis. Labs time tightly controlled trials; this site offers lite practice only, with no clinical battery behind the score.
What Is Attention Control? →IQ and Income
Surveys often find a positive correlation between cognitive-test scores and later earnings, but the path is noisy: education, health, networks, discrimination, and luck all sit in between. A correlation is not a paycheck forecast, and a higher score on a web game here is not a raise, a credential, or a clinical IQ. Group charts never tell you one person’s worth or hiring outcome.
IQ and Income →Visuospatial vs Verbal
Cognitive batteries often split visuospatial puzzles from verbal ones so you can see different strengths, not a single destiny. A high spatial sketch and a high vocabulary can diverge; neither pattern is a diagnosis. Online letter-span or hidden-figures lite games sample a slice of those families — they are not Wechsler indexes, not clinical IQ composites, and not career oracles.
Visuospatial vs Verbal →What Is Cognitive Flexibility?
Cognitive flexibility is the ability to update a rule when the world changes — switching from color to shape, or from one task set to another, without staying stuck. It is one executive-function toy, not a full intelligence profile. Task-switch lite on this site is original practice with no age norms, no standard error, and no clinical IQ attached to the hit count.
What Is Cognitive Flexibility? →Test Norming Basics
Norming is how a published test turns a raw hit count into a number you can compare with a reference group of the same age. Without a documented sample, a standard deviation, and a date, a web score is just a count. This site’s games are not normed batteries and must not be read as a clinical IQ, a school placement, or a medical finding.
Test Norming Basics →