Brain Games: Attention Challenge

By Alvaro Fernandez | March 30, 2008 |

(hat tip: Mind Hacks). Please try this exper­i­ment, con­ceived by Simons and Chabris for their now clas­sic study, and now pack­aged in a nicer video pro­duc­tion. You will watch a brief video clip show­ing two teams, and your chal­lenge is to count the TOTAL num­ber of times that the bas­ket­balls change hands. Click Here to…

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DriveFit (CogniFit); Brain Fitness Program for Driving

By Alvaro Fernandez | March 29, 2008

Dri­ving as Next Brain Fit­ness Application?  Last month, at the MIT/ Smart­Sil­vers event where we pre­sent­ed our Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket Report, we dis­cussed what spe­cif­ic appli­ca­tions, beyond the cur­rent empha­sis on healthy aging, might take com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing to a new level.   Assess­ing and improv­ing dri­ving skills would be a top can­di­date, giv­en both the well-defined…

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Brain Rules: science and practice

By Alvaro Fernandez | March 27, 2008 |

Inter­est­ed a good, non-tech­ni­­cal, sum­ma­ry of the impli­ca­tions of recent brain sci­ence in our dai­ly lives? Biol­o­gist John Med­i­na offers that in his arti­cle below (as part of our Author Speaks Series) and in his new book: Brain Rules: 12 Prin­ci­ples for Sur­viv­ing and Thriv­ing at Work, Home, and School. Enjoy! (Note: John will be…

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Meditation and The Brain

By Alvaro Fernandez | March 26, 2008 |

Superb blog arti­cle by Newsweek’s Sharon Beg­ley: The Lotus and the Synapse, intro­duc­ing a new Study that shows com­pas­sion med­i­ta­tion changes the brain. To read the orig­i­nal paper led by Richard David­son and Antoine Lutz, click Here. We will be cov­er­ing this in more detail next week.

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Nintendo Brain Training and Schools

By Alvaro Fernandez | March 25, 2008 |

An inter­est­ing recent arti­cle announce­sPupils to start day with Nin­ten­do Brain Train­ing(UK’s Dai­ly Tele­graph). Some quotes:  — “Chil­dren at 16 pri­ma­ry schools are to start each day by play­ing on a Nin­ten­do games con­sole, it was dis­closed yes­ter­day.” — “The pupils will play “brain train­ing” exer­cis­es before lessons after a pilot scheme at a school…

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Sleep, Tetris, Memory and the Brain

By Alvaro Fernandez | March 24, 2008 |

As part of our ongo­ing Author Speaks Series, we are hon­ored to present today this excel­lent arti­cle by Dr. Shan­non Mof­fett, based on her illu­mi­nat­ing and engag­ing book. Enjoy! (and please go to sleep soon if you are read­ing this late Mon­day night). ———— Two years ago I fin­ished a book on the mind/brain, called The Three…

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