Brain Science
Logic puzzles and memory games are both called "brain training." They train very different things.
The brain training app market treats logic puzzles and memory games as interchangeable - both are sold under the same marketing claims about cognitive enhancement. They are not interchangeable. They engage different cognitive systems, produce different training effects, and transfer to different real-world skills. Understanding the difference helps you choose the right tool for what you are actually trying to achieve.
Memory games - card matching, sequence repetition, N-back tasks - train working memory capacity and episodic memory encoding. The cognitive mechanism is retention and retrieval: hold information in mind, recognize or reproduce it, repeat under increasing load.
The research on memory game training is mixed but real. Working memory training shows consistent near-transfer effects: people who train on N-back tasks get better at N-back tasks and at closely related working memory measures. Evidence for far transfer - improvement in reasoning, problem solving, or academic performance - is modest and contested. A 2013 meta-analysis by Melby-Lervåg and Hulme found that working memory training produced reliable near-transfer improvements but little evidence of far transfer to fluid intelligence or academic outcomes.
Memory games are most useful when working memory capacity is the specific limiting factor you are trying to address - which is genuinely the case for some individuals, particularly those with ADHD or age-related working memory decline.
Logic puzzles - including the type in MyRin - train a different cognitive cluster: inhibitory control, pattern abstraction, and fluid reasoning. These are executive functions and reasoning skills rather than memory capacity.
Inhibitory control is the ability to suppress an initial, compelling-but-wrong response in order to reason toward the correct one. This is distinct from memory: you are not trying to remember the answer, you are trying to resist the first answer that comes to mind and find the one that actually satisfies all the constraints.
Pattern abstraction is the ability to extract an underlying rule from surface-level variation - to see that two situations that look different are governed by the same logical structure. This skill has stronger evidence for far transfer than working memory training. A 2022 meta-analysis in Intelligence found that pattern reasoning training produced significant improvements on measures of fluid intelligence in roughly half the studies reviewed, with stronger effects when the training used novel stimuli (as logic puzzles do) rather than repeated game formats.
Fluid reasoning - the ability to solve novel problems without relying on prior knowledge - is what logic puzzles most directly engage. Every MyRin puzzle presents a configuration the player has not seen before; the solution requires genuine reasoning, not retrieval of a memorized pattern.
The research consensus, as of 2026, is that logic and reasoning training transfers more broadly to real-world cognitive performance than memory training alone.
This makes intuitive sense. Most real-world cognitive challenges involve reasoning about novel situations - unfamiliar problems at work, decisions with incomplete information, understanding a complex argument - rather than retrieving stored information from memory. Fluid reasoning skills generalize to novel situations by definition; working memory capacity is more domain-specific.
For academic performance specifically, a 2020 study in Educational Psychology Review found that training in logical reasoning produced improvements in mathematics and reading comprehension that were not observed with working memory training alone. The proposed mechanism: logical reasoning skills improved students' ability to work through novel problems, while working memory training improved their ability to hold information in mind without necessarily improving how they processed it.
Memory training is not without value. For older adults experiencing episodic memory decline, targeted memory training can meaningfully slow the rate of decline and improve daily memory function. For individuals with diagnosed working memory deficits (including ADHD), working memory training has clinical support as part of a broader treatment approach.
If your concern is specifically about remembering where you put your keys, whether you have taken your medication, or tracking multiple threads of a complex project simultaneously - memory training addresses the cognitive system involved. Logic puzzle training does not directly address those tasks.
Yes, and combining them is more effective than choosing one exclusively. Working memory and fluid reasoning are distinct but interconnected - fluid reasoning tasks require some working memory to hold intermediate results, and working memory benefits from the executive control that reasoning training develops.
The practical approach: use logic puzzles for the primary cognitive challenge of your training sessions (20 minutes of MyRin), and add a short memory game component (5 to 10 minutes of N-back or sequence tasks) if working memory is a specific concern. This combination trains both systems without the long session times that reduce adherence.
Logic puzzles and memory games train different cognitive systems and transfer to different real-world skills. Logic puzzles - including MyRin's format - produce stronger evidence for broad far transfer because they engage fluid reasoning and pattern abstraction, which are the cognitive mechanisms most relevant to novel problem solving. Memory games produce stronger near-transfer to memory tasks specifically.
If you can only choose one, and your goal is general cognitive sharpness rather than a specific memory deficit, logic puzzles are the better investment. Download MyRin free on iOS and Android.