Today we are traveling to Japan to learn about newest gaming trends there. Go Hirano is a Japanese menagerial with palpate in neuroscience and gaming.
Alvaro Fernandez (Af): Hirano-san, what is the state of Brain Fitness and Brain Training in Japan? what are the most favorite programs so far?
Go Hirano (Gh): So far, the most favorite application is anti-aging, and most favorite goods is Dr. Kawashima's book of calculations and oral reading for adults.
Tv collection shows usually come up with Brain specials. It is hardly deniable that brains enchant Japanese people. We love brain training.
There were two times of "brain boom" in the past and Brain Imaging created a third one most recently. Dr. Kawashima claimed calculations and oral reading are good to establish kids' brains in the book for children "Jibun no Nou wo Jibun de Sodateru (Develop your own brain)" in 2001. In the book, gaming was said to sell out prefrontal activation and have bad or no benefit for kid's brain. He compared the fMri image of person doing uncomplicated calculations and playing games, and apparently the image of the previous showed more activities. To see the activities inside the brain was fresh for people, but the methodology and logic was not reviewed by any scientific publication. It was published by a firm that provides a franchised chain of learning classes. The firm maintained books at bookstores to originate a boom and was very successful. Then they came up with adult version of training book, and sold more than 2 million.
Adults and senior citizen were seriously did expanding and subtraction of 1 digit numbers for countless times believing it will declare and even improve their brainpower.
This then became the basis for the Nintendo Brain Age video game. More recently from him, cooking became good for brain since cooking demands planning and multiple tasks. They interrogate prefrontal cortex activation, and he showed image of a brain when cooking. A gas firm that wants to sell more gas ranges and ovens helped sponsor the research.
Af: we have heard there has been a backlash recently. Is it more of a scientific, or consumer one?
Gh: Scientific for adults' games, consumer for kids' ones. In 2001, other researcher, Dr. Akio Mori wrote an record called "Gemu(=Game) Nou(=Brain) no Kyofu (The Fear of Game Brain)". He created his own Eeg motor and gathered the data of citizen who frequently play games and citizen who do not. He found the "beta-wave" from frequent game players that are "same as senior citizen with dementia". That, he said, is because of lack of activities in their prefrontal cortex, and that means more probabilities for lower schoraly performance and crime. Though his tool was not verified, and he was said to get confused about alpha and beta wave of Eeg, parents and schooling authorities like municipal schooling committees loved his book and invited him for lectures and conferences. His new book in 2006 became the recommended book of the year from the National Pta Committee.
The sales of software on home game machines have declined from its peak of 533 billion yen in 1997 to its 53%, 315 billion yen in 2005. Dr. Mori's book and phenomena was the finishing blow to the industry, especially for kids' games. Therefore game companies had to find new targets who had never played game machines, like middle-aged group and women. Brain Age was preceded by a Sega's game box that was the natural next step after the book from Dr. Kawashima I mentioned.
For women, games on English training, language withhold for traveling, cooking, common sense and etiquette are provided. These new sort of serious games not only helped the handheld game motor stay all the time out of stock and reach multi-million sales, but also successfully gave the image that games are, depending on the software, good for the brain and education. Funny it is that the authority backing the campaign is the same Dr. Kawashima who originally recommended kids to reckon rather than to play games for the benefit for brains.
No wonder, authorities from the schoraly and healing societies of the neuroscience field started criticizing scientifically unproven or no evidence-based products, books and thought makers. This year, neuroscience researchers started a group called "Nou wo Ikasu (Make the best out of Neuroscience)" and have frequent meetings of researchers where citizen can join.
However, adult consumers keep devouring such games. Dentsu, the biggest advertising branch announced the No.1 Consumer-chosen choice of the goods 2006 was game software and books for brain training. So far, apparently the demands went far out before the real neuroscience comes to fill. Between the equilibrium of body and brain, Japanese citizen are one of the greatest that is most brain-ism oriented, to the brain side, says Dr. Yoro.
Af: Hirano-san, many thanks for your insights.
Gh: you are welcome.
Copyright (c) 2007 SharpBrains
