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This study argues that people recruited to use Brain Training score higher on fluid intelligence than people recruited to participate in a study for a reward.

This study argues that people recruited to use Brain Training score higher on fluid intelligence than people recruited to participate in a study for a reward. That is, Brain Training works for people who believe it works. So, shouldn't it be used by people who believe it works?

jerf 10y ago
I think that's a reasonable question. The answer is that there are much cheaper ways to obtain the placebo effect here than to give these companies your money. I also guess without immediate proof that the placebo effect is likely to be temporary and represent no real, persistent change to intelligence at all.... another reason to not give them your money. There are cheaper and much more entertaining ways to obtain "no change to your intelligence".
- ladon86 10y ago
  > The answer is that there are much cheaper ways to obtain the placebo effect here than to give these companies your money. There might be cheaper ways, but paying money has an impact too. That's why more expensive painkillers often work better than generic ones, despite having identical ingredients [1]. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080304173339.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080304173339.h...
cpncrunch 10y ago
We don't know if it was selection bias or the placebo effect, or a combination of both. It would be pretty simple to design another trial to test this.
- tmalsburg2 10y ago
  > If it is selection bias then the training has no effect whatsoever. That doesn't follow. Both factors could have an effect at the same time and both effects could, in principle, go in either direction. The only thing that we can conclude from the present study is that the joint effect of placebo and selection bias is positive.
  - cpncrunch 10y ago
    Yes. I just meant that the entire effect could have been due to selection bias, so we don't know if there was any placebo effect at all.
ec109685 10y ago
The self selected group may have exerted more effort in the second round of testing because of their belief they were in a study looking for certain results. It's clear, studies should recruit participants using neutral language like the right poster of the article to remove as much selection bias as possible.
abalone 10y ago
This is generally true for placebos in the psychological domain. Often times a positive outlook or expectation of improvement can achieve a somewhat better outcome. (One example among many: acupuncture in the domain of pain management.[1]) It is more a question of how much of an improvement one should expect, and whether placebo-sellers are exploiting their customers be setting false expectations. [1] https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/acupuncture-doesnt-work/ https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/acupuncture-doesnt-work...
xoa 10y ago
>So, shouldn't it be used by people who believe it works? You can't ignore opportunity cost when evaluating value/ROI. It's not merely about the absolute benefit any given method/material provides, but about how that compares to whatever else might have been done instead. This stuff is very much not free (hence being a "billion dollar industry"), either in terms of money or time, so the only way it "should be used" is if there was no superior (cheaper, faster or both) way to induce the equivalent placebo effect, and no other way whatsoever to produce an actual effect beyond placebo. That seems highly doubtful, given proven benefits from other forms of actual study. With the time/money spent on this sort of pure-placebo "Brain Training" someone could have worked on learning another language for example, or invested in other valuable training. The same argument you propose here is commonly applied to other highly profitable placebos pushed to the public, and in general the flaw in reasoning is always the same one of ignoring comparative ROI. Probably the most classic example would be homeopathy, wherein people literally just buy bottled water for hundreds to thousands of dollars per gallon. By definition there should be no negative effects, because there is nothing there but water (perhaps with a few flavors or non-bioactive aromatics), so worst case there is no harm, best case somebody experiences a bit of placebo benefit. That leads to "well what's the problem then, it can't hurt." But people don't have unlimited resources, any spending on pricey water directly subtracts from what they might have spent more productively elsewhere. Worse, choosing a non-medicine placebo may result in them failing to use actual medicine that was appropriate. So it does matter when something like this is pure placebo. Perhaps most humanly, it matters because it's not what people were being advertised, signing up or working for. "We lied to them because it was good for them" does not cut it.

jerf 10y ago

I think that's a reasonable question. The answer is that there are much cheaper ways to obtain the placebo effect here than to give these companies your money. I also guess without immediate proof that the placebo effect is likely to be temporary and represent no real, persistent change to intelligence at all.... another reason to not give them your money. There are cheaper and much more entertaining ways to obtain "no change to your intelligence".

ladon86 10y ago
> The answer is that there are much cheaper ways to obtain the placebo effect here than to give these companies your money. There might be cheaper ways, but paying money has an impact too. That's why more expensive painkillers often work better than generic ones, despite having identical ingredients [1]. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080304173339.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080304173339.h...

cpncrunch 10y ago

We don't know if it was selection bias or the placebo effect, or a combination of both. It would be pretty simple to design another trial to test this.

tmalsburg2 10y ago
> If it is selection bias then the training has no effect whatsoever. That doesn't follow. Both factors could have an effect at the same time and both effects could, in principle, go in either direction. The only thing that we can conclude from the present study is that the joint effect of placebo and selection bias is positive.
- cpncrunch 10y ago
  Yes. I just meant that the entire effect could have been due to selection bias, so we don't know if there was any placebo effect at all.

ec109685 10y ago

The self selected group may have exerted more effort in the second round of testing because of their belief they were in a study looking for certain results. It's clear, studies should recruit participants using neutral language like the right poster of the article to remove as much selection bias as possible.

abalone 10y ago

This is generally true for placebos in the psychological domain. Often times a positive outlook or expectation of improvement can achieve a somewhat better outcome. (One example among many: acupuncture in the domain of pain management.[1]) It is more a question of how much of an improvement one should expect, and whether placebo-sellers are exploiting their customers be setting false expectations. [1] https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/acupuncture-doesnt-work/ https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/acupuncture-doesnt-work...

xoa 10y ago

>So, shouldn't it be used by people who believe it works? You can't ignore opportunity cost when evaluating value/ROI. It's not merely about the absolute benefit any given method/material provides, but about how that compares to whatever else might have been done instead. This stuff is very much not free (hence being a "billion dollar industry"), either in terms of money or time, so the only way it "should be used" is if there was no superior (cheaper, faster or both) way to induce the equivalent placebo effect, and no other way whatsoever to produce an actual effect beyond placebo. That seems highly doubtful, given proven benefits from other forms of actual study. With the time/money spent on this sort of pure-placebo "Brain Training" someone could have worked on learning another language for example, or invested in other valuable training. The same argument you propose here is commonly applied to other highly profitable placebos pushed to the public, and in general the flaw in reasoning is always the same one of ignoring comparative ROI. Probably the most classic example would be homeopathy, wherein people literally just buy bottled water for hundreds to thousands of dollars per gallon. By definition there should be no negative effects, because there is nothing there but water (perhaps with a few flavors or non-bioactive aromatics), so worst case there is no harm, best case somebody experiences a bit of placebo benefit. That leads to "well what's the problem then, it can't hurt." But people don't have unlimited resources, any spending on pricey water directly subtracts from what they might have spent more productively elsewhere. Worse, choosing a non-medicine placebo may result in them failing to use actual medicine that was appropriate. So it does matter when something like this is pure placebo. Perhaps most humanly, it matters because it's not what people were being advertised, signing up or working for. "We lied to them because it was good for them" does not cut it.