Published Research on BrainHQ and Processing Speed
Perhaps the most important goal of BrainHQ training is to speed up your brain’s processing. That’s because quick, accurate processing of information that comes in through hearing, vision, and the other senses affects “higher” cognitive functions—like memory and problem solving. When the brain can’t quite keep up with the speed at which information is coming in, it makes only partial, “fuzzy” representations of that information. This has short-term and long-term effects. In the short term, it might lead you to mishear what someone said, have trouble following a conversation in a crowded place, miss a key visual detail (like a pedestrian entering the sidewalk), or misinterpret a brief facial expression. In the long term, it affects memory: your brain only has a fuzzy recording to rely on.
Several BrainHQ exercises are designed to gradually speed up visual and auditory processing. So far, 20 papers have shown that they work.
- A large study called the IMPACT Study (led by researchers at the Mayo Clinic and the University of Southern California) showed that using six BrainHQ exercises for 40 hours led to an average increase in auditory processing speed of 135%.
- The ACTIVE Study, one of the largest and most prestigious studies on cognitive training in adults ever conducted, saw a doubling, on average, in visual processing speed after just 10 hours of training with the BrainHQ exercise called Double Decision. Follow-ups showed that people retained some benefit of training five and even ten years later, especially if they did some short “booster” sessions on occasion.
- Two imaging studies led by scientists at Northwestern University showed that training with a set of BrainHQ’s auditory exercises could reverse negative trends in the brain: one recorded faster neural timing and precision and the other saw a better balance of speech representation in the brain. Both showed that these brain changes were accompanied by changes in how well the people could process sound and hear in noisy environments.
- Dozens of other studies (listed in other categories) have shown that such improvements in processing speed have several benefits in everyday life, from safer driving to a better ability to keep up with the demands of a modern busy life.
