While my own critique of the BBC’s “Brain Test Britain” focused on the quality (or lack thereof) of the training itself, a report from Dr. Elizabeth Zelinski addresses her methodological concerns and makes some valuable points. You can read Dr. Zelinksi’s full report at Sharp Brains. In her post titled Scientific critique of BBC/ Nature Brain Training Experiment Dr. Zelinski draws attention to the participant dropout rate (52,617 participants registering and 11,430 completing) “In a clinical trial,” she says, “such selective and high dropout rates would be considered very problematic.” She also noted methodological concerns about the use of “span tests” to measure change, as span tests are “famously insensitive to change.”
Tags: bbc, brain test britain, nature, news