Brain Trainer

How to play Brain Trainer

• Pick an exercise or work through the set in order.
• Read the instruction before the timer starts, because the rule changes between tasks.
• Answer as quickly as you can without guessing.
• Your score is kept so you can compare one session against the next.

The four kinds

• Memory tasks show you a sequence or a layout and take it away.
• Reaction tasks ask you to act the instant something changes, and punish acting early.
• Logic tasks give you a pattern to complete or a rule to work out.
• Focus tasks hide the answer behind a distraction, usually by making the obvious response the wrong one.

Tips and strategy

Memory

• Group things. Six items remembered as three pairs is a much lighter load than six separate items.
• Say the sequence to yourself. Sound is easier to hold for a few seconds than shape.
• Do not rehearse the first item while the last one is still being shown, or you will miss the end.

Reaction

• Rest your hand in position before the round starts, so the delay you measure is your reaction and not your reach.
• Do not anticipate. An early click costs more than a slow one in almost every scoring system.
• Watch the whole screen rather than one point. Peripheral vision notices change faster than a fixed stare.

Logic and focus

• Read the instruction twice. Most losses in this kind of task are misread rules, not hard problems.
• Look for what changes between one step and the next, rather than what each step contains.
• When a task pits meaning against appearance, cover the part you are meant to ignore with your hand. It works.

Getting a real score

Play at the same time of day and after a similar amount of sleep, or the numbers tell you about your night rather than your progress. Improvement in the first few sessions is mostly learning the interface, and the honest baseline is somewhere around the fourth or fifth attempt.