Is the scientific idea sound?
Does existing research support the skill or type of task?
Evidence
Progress should mean more than a higher exercise score.
Improvement inside an app, change on a separate task and a better real-world outcome are different forms of evidence. IQ Mindware reports them separately.
Four evidence questions
One claim should not do four jobs.
Each step needs its own evidence.
Does this exact app work reliably?
Do the timing, scoring and progression behave consistently?
Does progress extend beyond practice?
Does performance improve on a separate task or a genuinely new format?
Does a real outcome improve?
Does a defined work, study, service, health or performance goal change?
Current evidence matrix
What the current products can—and cannot—tell you.
| Product or outcome | What it offers now | Important limit |
|---|---|---|
| G Track | Separate attention, working-memory and matrix-reasoning measures for a starting point and later comparison. | Provisional, non-diagnostic estimates. Repeat testing can include practice effects. |
| Zone Check | A behavioural description of the conditions around a test session. | Not a brain-state detector or proven training selector. |
| Cognitive Control Coach | Attention control, relative-frame In/Out working-memory challenges and decision-timing practice as speed, accuracy, rewards and mistake costs change. | The MFT-M precursor has one randomised seven-day study in 84 healthy young adults with behavioural transfer to selected attention conditions and verbal-learning acquisition. Working-memory findings were more qualified. The current relational-WM and decision-timing extensions remain under staged validation. |
| CCC decision-timing outcome | Shows whether a user slows down when mistakes cost more and commits sooner when waiting has a cost. | This is in-app strategy adaptation, not proof of better real-world decisions. Decision quality and timing still need separate tests. |
| Pattern & Prediction Coach | Planned training in structured memory, pattern learning and future-state prediction. | In development and not currently available. |
| Applied Reasoning Coach | Planned training in explicit reasoning, scenarios and real-world application. | In development. No real-life decision benefit is established. |
Cognitive Control Coach · precursor-task evidence
What the MFT-M training study adds—and what it does not.
Cognitive Control Coach retains the masked majority-direction logic of the backward Masking Majority Function Task (MFT-M), then extends it with relative-frame working memory, changed visual wrappers and decision-timing practice.
Attention and verbal learning
In Zhang et al. (2024), 84 healthy young adults were randomised to seven days of MFT-M training or a sham programme. The training group improved on selected conditions of a separate ANT-R attention task and on the learning trials of a verbal-memory test.
Working-memory signal
The same study reported a larger P2 decrease and P3 increase during an untrained 2-back task, interpreted as more efficient attentional processing, plus an introversion-moderated effect on post-training 1-back efficiency. This is preliminary working-memory-related evidence, not a general behavioural WM gain.
Transfer is not uniform
Effects differed by outcome and participant characteristics. The study therefore supports a promising transfer signal from MFT-M-style attention-control training, not a claim that every executive function improves.
Boundary for the current app
The study tested MFT-M, not the full current Cognitive Control Coach. It does not establish the reliability or benefit of CCC's relative-frame n-back progression, optic-flow wrapper changes or decision-timing component. It also did not establish delayed verbal-memory recovery, general-intelligence gains, clinical rehabilitation effects or real-world functional benefit.
Read Zhang et al. (2024) → See the detailed CCC evidence guide →
How decision outcomes are handled
Faster is not automatically better.
Cognitive Control Coach deliberately changes the value of speed and caution. Progress means adjusting the response to the situation—not always responding faster.
- Measure timing and accuracy together
- Distinguish costly mistakes from costly delay
- Check a separate decision task where possible
- Keep real-world outcomes separate from app scores
- Return later to test whether the strategy remains usable
Claims boundary
Clear limits build better evidence.
IQ Mindware provides non-clinical cognitive measurement, training and coaching. It does not provide an official IQ score, diagnosis, guaranteed cognitive gain or guaranteed improvement in work, study, health, service or decision-making.
What we report
App learning, separate-task change, new-format transfer, delayed recovery and defined real-world outcomes are labelled as different results.
Choose a route with the evidence limits visible.
See what is available now and how progress would be checked.