Your first cognitive training session: a useful baseline

Choose a session you can actually finish

Reserve a short period when you can sit comfortably and avoid interruptions. Five minutes is a practical starting choice, not a scientifically established dose. Decide whether today’s purpose is learning the controls or collecting a baseline. Trying to do both while rushing makes the result harder to interpret. Leave time afterward to describe what was confusing rather than chasing another round.

Make the starting conditions explicit

Use a quiet setting and a device position that lets you see and respond comfortably. Note an interruption or unusual tiredness if it affects the session. You do not need a detailed personal health log for this purpose. A simple note such as “phone call during the second exercise” explains why a later comparison might be unfair.

Practise the response rule first

Read what counts as a correct response, what requires no response and whether speed matters. Work through a short example in your own words before starting. For a matching task, identify exactly which earlier item is compared. A baseline taken while guessing the instructions primarily captures that confusion. Pause and clarify instead of treating a misunderstood task as a personal limitation.

Pick one goal and an available duration

MindBuilding’s description lists goals and circuits of 5, 10, 20 or 40 minutes. Start with a duration that fits today rather than selecting the longest because it sounds more serious. Keep your initial goal narrow, such as learning one task reliably. The plan is an exercise sequence, not a personalised medical assessment or a promise of better performance at school or work.

Read the result without a verdict on yourself

Look for what you actually did: missed targets, false responses or difficulty maintaining the rule. Save the settings with the result where possible. A low first attempt is useful if it tells you what to clarify next. Avoid comparing unrelated exercises directly; different scores and response scales do not share a single meaning. Familiarity can change performance between sessions.

Schedule a comparable second attempt

Repeat under broadly similar conditions after a manageable interval, changing only what you need to fix. MindBuilding describes saved sessions and periodic check-ups on untrained tasks. We publish both the app and this guide. Those features support observation; they do not by themselves prove everyday transfer. Research findings are stronger for trained tasks, and the app provides neither diagnosis nor an intelligence score.

Further reading

• Simons et al.: Do Brain-Training Programs Work?
• MindBuilding: publisher feature description