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State College Named #2 Smartest City

Following a recent study, State College came in second place among America’s smartest cities.

Lumosity, a San Francisco-based research company studying human cognition, tested the memory, processing speed, flexibility, attention, and problem solving abilities of 3,385,648 people, ages 15 to 85, from all over America. State College came second only to Ithaca, N.Y., home to Cornell University and Ithaca College but was still in front of the third smartest city in the U.S. in Lafeyette, Ind., home to Purdue University.

The study shows that most of the “smartest cities” are located in college towns. Lumosity Data Scientist Daniel Sternberg said in a statement to venturebeat.com, “Neuroscience research has found that those who are engaged in learning and cognitively stimulating activities throughout the lifetime build up a ‘cognitive reserve’ that helps maintain and improve cognitive performance.”

In other words, if you exercise your brain by learning and completing memory, processing speed, flexibility, attention, and problem solving tasks throughout your lifetime, you’ll increase your brain power.

Lumosity “required a minimum sample size of 500 users for an area” and over 1,300 cities participated. The research was conducted through a series of games, adjusted for differing ages, that tested memory, processing speed, flexibility, attention, and problem solving abilities. From there, Lumosity scored and ranked cities based on the location of volunteer’s current computer IP address.

Lumosity also separated their study into several other categories, to which State College came in second for smartest age groups under 35 and ages 35-55 in mental flexibility and memory. State College took third place in attention, fourth in problem solving, and fifth in speed. As for age groups 55 and above, State College was ranked 19th out of 307 cities.

State College came in four spots above Ann Arbor, Mich. and 51 above Pittsburgh. Columbus was noticeably absent.

Click here for the complete Lumosity Study.

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About the Author

Megan Swiatkowski

I'm a South Jersey girl with a passion for news!

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