Namaegao · Memory training
A concentration game with face cards and name cards. Playing it trains exactly one thing: linking a face to a name. Reaction time and accuracy are recorded and turned into a rank. Free in the browser, no account needed.
It is not that your memory is bad. It is what a name is made of.
Memory research has a name for this: the Baker-baker effect. The same word is remembered far better as an occupation (“he is a baker”) than as a surname (“his name is Baker”). McWeeny and colleagues reported it in 1987 and it has been replicated many times since.
The reason is simple. “Baker” the occupation connects to flour, a white hat, the smell of bread — it has somewhere to attach. “Baker” the surname connects to nothing. A name is a piece of information floating alone with no meaning attached, so there is nothing for memory to catch on.
There is only one thing to do: link the face and the name, over and over. It is a concentration game because that format forces a moment of trying to recall.
Trying to remember and failing does more for memory than looking and reviewing — a line of work that runs from Craik and Tulving's depth-of-processing studies in 1975 through to what is now called the testing effect. You flip a card, try to recall, and get it wrong. That wrong moment is the part that works.
Being straight about it. What this trains is one specific thing: connecting faces to names. It does not raise general memory ability. Most claims that brain-training games make you smarter turn out to mean you got better at that particular game. This app is no exception. But if that one thing is what fails you, it does help.
Difficulty is the number of cards. Start with few. Clearing the board is not the point; making yourself try to recall is.
The browser version is completely free, needs no account, and shows no ads. Nothing is required to play.
The Android version carries ads and in-app purchases. It is free to play, but ads are shown. The two versions are otherwise the same. If ads bother you, use the browser version.
Studio Toriumi, a one-person studio. There are about 36 other things here, and a lot of them sit around memory and the brain — such as what is known about reducing dementia risk and an app that watches your eyelids and wakes you.
This is built by one person, so I may not be able to reply to every message. Bug reports are welcome, but a reply is not guaranteed. Thank you for understanding.