Good comments.

Clif: the context here is even wider. On the one hand, given increased longevity and variability in quality of cognitive aging, it will soon stop making sense to maintain arbitrary and universal retirement age thresholds. On the other hand (and this is what happens with driving) if there are no established "retirement" age thresholds...how and when do people (say, a lawyer, or a driver) need to stop working (driving) because they are not cognitively qualified any longer? As a society, we will need to set up new expectations and processes.

Now, what is potentially very promising about the Allstate- Posit Science initiative is not the testing component, but the training one. What if relatively inexpensive interventions help to maintain important driving capacities (and related quality of life and mental health)for 1- 2-3-4-5 more years? And if the same was possible in other occupations where cognitive demands can be broken down and then enhanced in a side-effect-free way?

In terms of privacy, there are 2 separate companies involved here: Posit Science gathers data. Allstate doesn't receive any data that allows to identify an individual. I will follow-up with them to ask what kind of safeguards are in place to prevent any kind of unintended information to be requested/ transferred.

CJ: the point here is to train specific cognitive skills relevant to driving a car, to ensure transfer to real life.

Tom: perhaps older drivers drive slower as a defensive response, precisely because it takes them longer to process information and react? what if training may help reduce the rate of decline of those cognitive abilities...thereby contributing to alleviate the problem you point out?

Stoneleafmoon: good point. Two people with the same age may have very different cognitive abilities, so age by itself is not the only factor at play.

Nice to see a high-quality debate. David, it was very fun to chat with you and interact with your clients.

Phillip and Liz: thanks for helping correct the link.

Pyros: from my point of view, "smart" defines the ability to learn and adapt to new environments. Wisdom, or pattern recognition, is an important component, but not the only one, and in fact it can get in the way if the environment changes too quickly and the person tries to apply learned patterns that are relevant no more.

Henry: As I have expressed in the past to Dr. Merzenich and other Posit members, I am open to interviewing him as part of our neuroscience interview series that cover all angles of cognitive training

Dave: great response. I assume that you already have seen my interview with Yaacov Stern?
Note that other neuroscientists go beyond his claims, but it is a great starting point as you mention.

Eric: I am not too familiar with "Brain Gym", except to agree with what you say above. The good news: I am presenting at a K12 Learning & The Brain next February, and I see not "brain gym" representative in the agenda. We don't use "brain gym" terminology for that reason. We use "brain fitness" instead, as a consequence of market surveys 2 years ago. I encourage you to read the interviews I link above, most of them include overall explanations and then specific links to quality published research. In terms of the product you highlight, let me say that
1) we do not produce that product, so we would have 0 problem in stopping selling it tomorrow if we didn't have happy customers,
2) there is good research on how Heart Rate Variability biofeedback is a useful tool for emotional self-regulation, which is important to ensure good performance under pressure. Hence, it is useful in a variety of high-stress situations, because the physiology of a student taking a critical test is not that different from a golfer about to make an important shot or a trader deciding whether to maintain or reverse a bet given new real-time financial conditions.