Or, the free version of training it, anyhow. But I’m getting ahead of myself. There’s this program called Lumosity that had a whole bunch of ads going around a few years back, and, while I usually ignore ads with extreme prejudice, I eventually caved and downloaded it. I completely forgot that it existed for a couple years until it found its way into my Facebook feed, and I’ve since restarted the habit of using it. Like I said, I use the free version, so, while I’ll try to point out premium stuff, that’s not my focus.
Lumosity is a program that uses a plethora of games to train different aspects of your mind, namely Speed, Memory, Attention, Flexibility, Problem Solving, Math, and, more recently, Vocabulary. It does this by, each day, selecting games for you to play (free version – 3, Premium – 5). Each game has its own scoring methods, in which you attempt to beat your personal high scores. The scores of the games in each category are averaged for the score listed for each of those categories, except for Vocabulary, where they just count the unique words you’ve used, and the scores of all of the games are averaged to form your LPI, or Lumosity Performance Index, which is “a standardized scale calculated from all your game scores.” In the free version, you are able to see your Best LPI, Current LPI, and LPI’s for each “Cognitive Area,” which I usually just refer to as categories. They also track your mood and sleep trends based off of the questions at the beginning of the lesson, and average them.
In free version, you are able to go back and repeatedly play the three games you had that day as much as you would like, but in the Premium version, not only do you get 5 games, but you have access to all 60+ games. These aren’t the only Premium perks. You also get an algorithm that “generates workouts based on your training habits and preferences,” a more detailed training history, how you compare to other people, and a system called “Insights.”
Insights has a lot of subsets, presently 9. Four of these appear to be an overall program: Your Monthly Gains and Drops, Your Occupation Profile, Your Lumosity Community, and Your Game Strength Profile. The others are each based off of a different game, which is listed at the beginning of the title — Train of Thought: Your Planning Skills, Disillusion: Your Play Style, Lost in Migration: How You Filter Information, Ebb and Flow: Your Speed and Accuracy, and Word Bubbles: Your Writer Profile. What do each of these mean? For the most part, I have no clue.
The only one of these I have had the pleasure of trying (thanks e-mail promo codes!) was the Writer Profile. I enjoyed the game Word Bubbles already, which gives you two starter letters on the first round for you to make words out of (ex: PR), three for the first half of the second round and then two (TRI, then TR) and four for the first third of the third round, going down incrementally (you get the idea and I’m out of examples, so yeah). Your Writer Profile matches your vocabulary with the most unique and frequently used thousand or so words from famous writers, to compare your top six matches. Each time you play, this updates, so your matches may shift over time. Though the order of them varied, I spent my three days of Writer Profile with only one set of matches: J. K. Rowling, Agatha Christie, Stephen Hawking, Martin Luther King Jr., William Shakespeare, and Stephen Covey. I had to look up the last guy (it provided brief bios on each in case you didn’t know who they were), but I was pleased with my selection overall.
Lumosity has also recently added a side program called Mindfulness, which focuses on breathing and being in the moment. I was tentative about trying it, but determined that I should, if only to say that I had tried. I would best summarize it as poking the dot on the screen to sync with your breathing. When you inhaled, you held your finger on the screen (or clicked on the computer, I assume) and the little white circle got bigger, then watched it contract when you exhaled and let go. As amusing as it was, it was also surprisingly effective. This noted, I’ve only done the first three or so exercises on it, all in one day, and then forgotten about it until this post. Whoops.
