New Article by Dr. McCabe Published and Featured by NPR
Recently, Associate Professor of Psychology Dr. Jennifer McCabe was first author on a publication that provided a commentary on the effectiveness of current "brain-training" programs.
Dr. McCabe's article, titled "Brain-Training Pessimism, but Applied Memory Optimism," was recently published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest. This was an invited commentary to the central article in this special issue on whether so-called "brain-training" programs work. Dr. McCabe's commentary explored the idea of using low-cost "learning-strategy training programs" as an alternative to the existing, ineffective brain-training programs. These proposed learning-strategy training programs would include education on, and practice with, evidence-based long-term memory strategies, including elaboration, self-testing, and spacing or distributing study.
Soon after being published, the main article by Daniel J. Simons and colleagues was covered by NPR. In "Brain Game Claims Fail A Big Scientific Test," NPR correspondent Jon Hamilton summarizes the demonstrated ineffectiveness of these brain-training programs despite their popularity (http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/10/03/496120962/brain-game-claims-fail-a-big-scientific-test).
McCabe, J.A., Redick, T.S., & Engle, R.W. (2016). Brain-training pessimism, but applied-memory optimism. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 17(3), 187-191. doi:10.1177/1529100616664716
http://psi.sagepub.com/content/17/3/187.full?ijkey=bITOTsGOdWGHY&keytype=ref&siteid=sppsi
See the table of contents of the journal issue here: http://psi.sagepub.com/content/current