And initial studies suggested that these, these were effective.
That they were creating change in memory.
However I think overall the current consensus in research is that these
software programs can definitely improve this specific skill that they're training.
So, if you're working on increasing how many sounds you can hear in a sequence
correctly, you will over time,
if you keep doing that, you will manage to hear more sounds.
But what's less clear right now is how generizable that skill is.
So if you learn to hear more sounds in the software program, in a particular way,
is that going to help you remember more words that your teacher says?
Or more French vocabulary items?
We don't yet
have very convincing evidence that you do see that degree of generalization.
That practicing a specific skill is going to be able to help you learn a foreign
language or remember more of the things you need to pack in your school bag.
So that's the caution with these programs.
People are using them and
there maybe benefits that we're actually not capturing yet through research.
There may be general motivational benefits,
there may be some subtle positive effects on attention.
But we would just say treat those software programs with caution right now.
Things are changing rapidly.
The software programs themselves are developing quickly, and research is
really looking at this question in depth, because of the widespread nature, and
the hope that actually we could improve memory as a core ability.
But, I wouldn't put all of your faith right now in
using one of these software programs as a kind of cure for memory problems.
So, what I'm actually going to focus on in this segment is really
knowing your memory as it is, and working optimally around the memory you have.