Stakeholder #3

The third stakeholder is the collective group of researchers that spoke out against Lumosity and any "brain game". The group consisted of 70 researchers in various disciplines, mainly those of neuroscience and psychology origins. All of these researchers were gathered under the Stanford Center on Longevity. This research center was founded by Laura L. Cartstensen PhD. She approached Richard Rainwater, an investor in Texas, to fund the center. Although the research center is an essential part of exposing Lumosity, the 70 researchers that participated in the experiments are the true stakeholders. The research center simply supplied them with the resources to conduct their research. The actual conclusions and findings are reflections of the 70 scientists involved. The origins of the scientist span across the country. The vast majority of them come from state universities, where most of them are either professors, assistant professors, or senior researchers. Many of these people were involved in research that studied brain training games, similarly to Lumosity. This is particularly interesting since they concluded that any type of brain game, or any specific activity for that matter, shows no proof of increasing cognition.

 "...at this point it is not appropriate to conclude that training-induced changes go significantly beyond the learned skills, that they affect broad abilities with real-world relevance, or that they generally promote 'brain health'."

To date, there is little evidence that playing brain games improves underlying broad cognitive abilities, or that it enables one to better navigate a complex realm of everyday life.

We object to the claim that brain games offer consumers a scientifically grounded avenue to reduce or reverse cognitive decline when there is no compelling scientific evidence to date that they do. 

I believe there is a lot of credibility in the statements presented by this collective group of researchers. Many of these researchers had their own careers in different states around the country and they decided to come to the Stanford Center on Longevity solely to conduct research. There is no profit motive. The only benefits of performing this research is adding credibility to the researchers track record and exposing/correcting previous findings. Since many of the researchers involved were already part of other research efforts to create brain training games, it would actually be against their personal interests to participate because they concluded that there is no such game that can achieve cognitive improvement in daily life.

The statements of these scientists are perhaps the most substantial of all the stakeholders. Backed by legitimate research, the statements address issues beyond science. After stating their findings, they describe how many programs try to advertise cognitive improvement, but none actually have the facts to back it up. This is the true cause of the FTC charging Lumosity with false advertisement and deceiving the consumers.