I have less faith in public radio because my local station is always playing Lumosity adverts. I'm old enough to remember when the whole "sponsored by" thing being extended to full ads was a controversial development on US public radio. Now they're shilling outright scams and doing so with specific promises that are completely specious.
Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app
101–110 of 259 posts
Re: Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
The worst that can happen to a good small company is that some overhyped and overfunded 'start-up' enters the field and spoils the trust built slowly and over a long time between the consumers and the suppliers of goods and services. This is unfortunately not rare at all and the 'hotter' a market seems the more of these BS artists will enter. In the end you have the same product and the same relationship with your cu…
This is actually a form of corporate sabotage some companies use. You'll find it interesting to read about Coca Cola's Tab Clear[1]. Basically, Pepsi introduced a soda called Crystal Clear that was gaining momentum in the "clear soda" market. Coke wanted to sabotage the public perception, so they introduced "Tab Clear" and made it taste so terrible, that both products failed within 6 months. After that, no one wanted…
Sprite and 7-Up have been around longer than that.
Re: Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
The worst that can happen to a good small company is that some overhyped and overfunded 'start-up' enters the field and spoils the trust built slowly and over a long time between the consumers and the suppliers of goods and services. This is unfortunately not rare at all and the 'hotter' a market seems the more of these BS artists will enter. In the end you have the same product and the same relationship with your cu…
This is actually a form of corporate sabotage some companies use. You'll find it interesting to read about Coca Cola's Tab Clear[1]. Basically, Pepsi introduced a soda called Crystal Clear that was gaining momentum in the "clear soda" market. Coke wanted to sabotage the public perception, so they introduced "Tab Clear" and made it taste so terrible, that both products failed within 6 months. After that, no one wanted…
Wait, what? Sprite had been around long before Tab Clear came and went.
Re: Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Define "benefited". Saying, "I dropped acid and learned about myself," is very different from saying, "I dropped acid and became smarter." If you're in the latter camp, yes, I'm going to assume you're stupid.
First of all, I think you're expecting way too much rigor from non-scientific, colloquial use of words. You already know what people mean when they talk about things in the general sense. In any case, its not for me to define. If someone tells me they dropped acid and it helped them in solving a problem, or opened their eyes to new ways of solving them, I'd take them at their word. In the context of altered mental st…
I think you're ignoring the context in which I originally replied in this thread.
"Dual n-back, coffee, LSD. All things people swear make you smarter."
It's not up for debate that people find a benefit from LSD. Or any drug. It's literally the reason that people do drugs in the first place. The question is whether or not they make you more intelligent. Able to process information more quickly and accurately. And to that my answer is a resounding no.
And call me crazy, but yes, I do think you should approach an extremely powerful hallucinogen whose dose is measured in micrograms with some rigor and discipline. The potential harm to someone's mental state is a serious risk of LSD that people tend to under appreciate until they've seen it happen to someone.
Re: Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app
#105I have something of a litmus test for companies where I just assume any company that advertises a lot via "live reads" on radio/podcasts is not to be trusted. Lumosity, LifeLock, etc. There are outliers for which I wouldn't quite say "not to be trusted" like Dollar Shave Club and Blue Apron, but even in those cases you are, IMO, overpaying for a vanishingly small amount of convenience. I think it holds up pretty well…
Just curious how you would view Dollar Shave Club as "overpaying".
It is mostly a marketing/shipping shell on top of Dorco brand razors, cheaper to buy direct from Dorco.
Granted, "overpay" is somewhat relative and DSC is still better than paying for Gillette or whatever.
Re: Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was under the impression that Dual-n-Back[0] had real benefits. Is that not the case? [0] http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/
Gwern's done extensive research into this, and his meta-analysis has shown there's "a net gain (medium-sized) on the post-training IQ tests"[0, 1]. 0: http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis 1: http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ
This is really great! I'll have to look into this when I have a little while. Thanks for passing it on. Just on a glance, I disagree that it really shows much of an increase though. Just glancing at the forest plots of those effect sizes tells me that this isn't a very strong effect at all (if it's there).
And there is also the so called 'file drawer' effect. I was at one of the big cog psych conferences a few years ago when a colleague was asking around -'Do you have any failed to replicates for WM training?' Everyone was so excited with the original Jaeggi 2008 paper, went out and tried it, and had a tough time replicating what turned out to be a severely flawed study.
Re: Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Relax, I was just posting a deliberate piece of hyperbole to test whether someone might want to fine me.
Then why the downvote? If I was just falling into your deliberate trap, you shouldn't be taking it out on my karma.
Why do you assume you know who downvoted you?
Re: Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app
#108I develop similar product, that focuses on eye training instead of brains. Half of our office is filled with ophthalmologists, with some big names (supposedly — I don't know much about the field). Constant print outs of scientific articles lying around, presentation files stick to the walls (I don't know the proper term, but you know what I mean if you've been into scientific conferences and seminars) and overall vibe really feels like it's a university faculty and not a start-up. Damn, we even have fully equipped ophthalmologist office and get free eye exams when it's not used to measure our beta-testers.
I always assumed that brain training apps are just like that. What "did not have the science" really mean in this case? Did they find some errors in peer-reviewed papers these companies have published? Or they just faked it all?
Re: Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app
#109I have less faith in public radio because my local station is always playing Lumosity adverts. I'm old enough to remember when the whole "sponsored by" thing being extended to full ads was a controversial development on US public radio. Now they're shilling outright scams and doing so with specific promises that are completely specious.
When I was a kid, I remember a talk radio show my family listened to that was one of those consumer watchdog / product review shows. One of the advertisements that you head a lot back then was for purchasing a star (like, getting your name registered somewhere and when a new star was discovered by astronomers it would be named after you?)... It was obviously a scam and all you'd get is a bogus certificate in the mail.
Anyway, one day someone called into the show and asked about this product that they advertised, and the host stammered a bit and basically said "well, yeah that's not true but it's all just for fun, a fun gift for people maybe". Was funny to hear him trying to justify this obvious scam because they happened to advertise with the station, even though the entire premise of the show was calling bullshit on other phony product claims.
Re: Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was under the impression that Dual-n-Back[0] had real benefits. Is that not the case? [0] http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/
Gwern's done extensive research into this, and his meta-analysis has shown there's "a net gain (medium-sized) on the post-training IQ tests"[0, 1]. 0: http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis 1: http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ
Literally the next paragraph:
"The size of this increase on IQ test score correlates highly with the methodological concern of whether a study used active or passive control groups. This indicates that the medium effect size is due to methodological problems and that n-back training does not increase subjects’ underlying fluid intelligence but the gains are due to the motivational effect of passive control groups (who did not train on anything) not trying as hard as the n-back-trained experimental groups on the post-tests.
The remaining studies using active control groups find a small positive effect (but this may be due to matrix-test-specific training, undetected publication bias, smaller motivational effects, etc.)"