Yahoo News Decoder: New brain training app launched to improve concentration skills and attention span
Find that you can’t concentrate on any task for more than 10 minutes? With all those emails pinging into your inbox, or WhatsApp messages flashing up on your phone, it’s no wonder we are finding it harder to concentrate than ever with all these digital distractions.
This is an affliction that affects all of us. According to a survey by YouGov last year, 75 per cent of UK workers are checking their phones whilst at work. We can’t even put our phones done at home with 55 per cent of respondents saying they can’t get through dinner without checking their phones.
Whilst we can blame smartphones for our lack of attention skills, devices could also hold the key to reversing this trend. A team from the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cambridge has created a new app named Decoder, in partnership with games developer Tom Piercy, which wants to help users improve their attention and concentration.
The team behind Decoder evaluated the science behind the app. According to Professor Barbara Sahakian, from Cambridge’s Department of Psychiatry, and her colleague Dr George Savulich, playing Decoder on an iPad for eight hours over one month improves attention and concentration.
During a study, 75 adults were divided into three groups: one group played Decoder, one control group played Bingo and the second control group received no game. The first two groups were invited to attend eight one-hour sessions over a month during which they played either Decoder or Bingo under supervision.
At the start and end of the trial, the participants were tested using the CANTAB Rapid Visual Information Processing test, which is often used as a highly sensitive test of attention and concentration.
The results showed that the adults who played Decoder showed an improvement in attention compared to those who played Bingo and the group that didn’t play any games.
In fact, there were such improvements in attention that it was comparable to the effects of stimulants such as Ritalin, used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Professor Sahakian said: "Many people tell me that they have trouble focussing their attention. Decoder should help them improve their ability to do this. In addition to healthy people, we hope that the game will be beneficial for patients who have impairments in attention, including those with ADHD or traumatic brain injury. We plan to start a study with traumatic brain injury patients this year."
The Decoder game has been licensed to app developer Peak, which specialises in evidence-based ‘brain training’ apps. Decoder is available to download from today on the Apple App Store, as part of the Peak Brain Training app. An Android version should be available later this year.
The game has undergone a few changes as part of its inclusion in the Peak Brain Training app. Professor Sahakian commented: "Peak's version of Decoder is even more challenging than our original test game, so it will allow players to continue to gain even larger benefits in performance over time. By licensing our game, we hope it can reach a wide audience who are able to benefit by improving their attention."
