“Improving Methodological Standards in Behavioral Interventions for Cognitive Enhancement”, C. Shawn Green, Daphne Bavelier, Arthur F. Kramer, Sophia Vinogradov, Ulrich Ansorge, Karlene K. Ball, Ulrike Bingel, Jason M. Chein, Lorenza S. Colzato, Jerri D. Edwards, Andrea Facoetti, Adam Gazzaley, Susan E. Gathercole, Paolo Ghisletta, Simone Gori, Isabela Granic, Charles H. Hillman, Bernhard Hommel, Susanne M. Jaeggi, Philipp Kanske, Julia Karbach, Alan Kingstone, Matthias Kliegel, Torkel Klingberg, Simone Khn, Dennis M. Levi, Richard E. Mayer, Anne Collins McLaughlin, Danielle S. McNamara, Martha Clare Morris, Mor Nahum, Nora S. Newcombe, Rogerio Panizzutti, Ruchika Shaurya Prakash, Albert Rizzo, Torsten Schubert, Aaron R. Seitz, Sarah J. Short, Ilina Singh, James D. Slotta, Tilo Strobach, Michael S. C. Thomas, Elizabeth Tipton, Xin Tong, Haley A. Vlach, Julie Loebach Wetherell, Anna Wexler, Claudia M. Witt2019-01-08 (DNB; backlinks)⁠:

There is substantial interest in the possibility that cognitive skills can be improved by dedicated behavioral training. Yet despite the large amount of work being conducted in this domain, there is not an explicit and widely agreed upon consensus around the best methodological practices. This document seeks to fill this gap.

We start from the perspective that there are many types of studies that are important in this domain—eg. feasibility, mechanistic, efficacy, and effectiveness. These studies have fundamentally different goals, and, as such, the best-practice methods to meet those goals will also differ.

We thus make suggestions in topics ranging from the design and implementation of control groups, to reporting of results, to dissemination and communication, taking the perspective that the best practices are not necessarily uniform across all study types. We also explicitly recognize and discuss the fact that there are methodological issues around which we currently lack the theoretical and/or empirical foundation to determine best practices (eg. as pertains to assessing participant expectations). For these, we suggest important routes forward, including greater interdisciplinary collaboration with individuals from domains that face related concerns.

Our hope is that these recommendations will greatly increase the rate at which science in this domain advances.

…Conflict of Interest: The following authors have declared conflict(s) of interest. Bavelier is a founding partner and on the scientific advisory board of Akili Interactive, Boston; Vinogradov is a consultant for Posit Science Corp, Alkermes, Inc., and Mindstrong, Inc.; Ball owns stock in the Visual Awareness Research Group (formerly Visual Awareness, Inc.) and Posit Science, Inc., the companies that market the Useful Field of View Test and speed of processing training software (now the Double Decision exercise in BrainHQ), and is a member of the Posit Science Scientific Advisory Board; Gazzaley is a co-founder, scientific advisor, and BOD member for Akili Interactive Lab and has several patents filed at UCSF for video game enhancement technologies; Jaeggi has an indirect financial interest in the MIND Research Institute, Irvine, CA, whose interests are related to this work; Levi is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of NovaSight; Morris is on the scientific advisory boards of Neurotrack and of the AARP Global Council on Brain Health; Nahum is a paid consultant for Posit Science; Panizzutti is the founder of NeuroForma LTDA, a company with a financial interest in computerized cognitive training; Seitz is a founder and stakeholder in Carrot Neurotechnology, a company that sells a vision brain game called ULTIMEYES. The other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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