Blog Glob-Navy: Grow Sailors' Brains With iPhone App
Posted Nov 18 2010 12:00am
Excerpt:
High on the Navy’s just-released wish list for designs from small businesses is a “brain-fitness training program” that sailors can use to sharpen their cognitive skills. It’s got to work on an “ultramobile platform” like an iPhone or a netbook. According to a solicitation released yesterday, the Navy wants it to produce measurable improvements in “working memory, attention, language processing and decision making,” not just in “new recruits” but aging captains, admirals and senior enlisteds.
Think of it like a souped-up adult education app. With something of a twist.
Any business that wants the Navy’s cash must demonstrate that its learning program will actually change sailors’ brains. Among other criteria, pilot programs have to actually “quantify brain-tissue growth.” Not to be overly literal, but some recent neuroscientific studies posit that adult brain cells expand and contract in response to stimuli, a process known as neuroplasticity.
What “growth” in this context actually means is a faster brain, where synapses fire electrical impulses more rapidly in response to stimuli. That’s what the Navy wants to witness.
Excerpt:
High on the Navy’s just-released wish list for designs from small businesses is a “brain-fitness training program” that sailors can use to sharpen their cognitive skills. It’s got to work on an “ultramobile platform” like an iPhone or a netbook. According to a solicitation released yesterday, the Navy wants it to produce measurable improvements in “working memory, attention, language processing and decision making,” not just in “new recruits” but aging captains, admirals and senior enlisteds.Think of it like a souped-up adult education app. With something of a twist.
Any business that wants the Navy’s cash must demonstrate that its learning program will actually change sailors’ brains. Among other criteria, pilot programs have to actually “quantify brain-tissue growth.” Not to be overly literal, but some recent neuroscientific studies posit that adult brain cells expand and contract in response to stimuli, a process known as neuroplasticity.
What “growth” in this context actually means is a faster brain, where synapses fire electrical impulses more rapidly in response to stimuli. That’s what the Navy wants to witness.
Click to read the rest of Navy: Grow Sailors' Brains With iPhone App (Wired blog).