Brain Teaser 1. In which direction is the bus pictured below traveling?

Do you know the answer?

The only possible answers are “left” or “right.”

Still don’t know?

When pre-school children were shown this picture and question, they all answered “left.” When asked why, they answered “Because you can’t see the door.”

Believe it or not, this simple teaser generated a very lively controversy with over  50 comments…some of my favorites “I’ve been looking at the bus for a long time now and it is not moving at all” (Peter), “Fools! It is falling, because there is no ground under it! How’s that for logic? (Richard), and ”I would like to reiterate that this drawing looks like a UFO, and could, therefore, be moving in any direction” (todios).

 

Brain Teaser 2. You think you know the colors?

Quick! say aloud what color you see in every word, NOT the word you read.         Not that easy, right?  The Stroop test is used in neuropsychological evaluations to measure mental vitality and flexibility, since performing well requires strong inhibition capacity. Â

 

Brain Teaser 3. Can You Pay Attention?

Please try this fun experiment. You will watch a brief video clip showing two teams, and your challenge is to count the number of passes made by the team in white.

Click Here to view the Basketball Experiment clip.

 

 

Brain Teaser 4.  Find the Homographs

Dr. Pascale Michelon created this one. In the column below you have five pairs of words. Your goal is to find a third word that is connected or associated with both of these two words.

The first pair is PIANO and LOCK. The answer is KEY. The word key is connected with both the word piano and the word lock: there are KEYS on a piano and you use a KEY to lock doors….

Key is what is called a homograph: a word that has more than one meaning but is always spelled the same.

Ready to stimulate connections in your temporal lobe? Enjoy! (Solutions are at the bottom of the post. Please don’t check them until you have tried to solve all the pairs!)

1. LOCK – PIANO

2. SHIP – CARD

3. TREE – CAR

4. SCHOOL – EYE

5. PILLOW – COURT

 

Brain Teaser 5. Have We Stressed You Out?

Here is a very quick test to determine your stress level now. Read the following description completely before looking at the picture.

The picture below was used in a case study on stress levels at St. Mary’s Hospital. Look at both dolphins jumping out of the water. The dolphins are identical. A closely monitored, scientific study revealed that, in spite of the fact that the dolphins are identical, a person under stress would find differences between the two dolphins. The more differences a person finds between the dolphins, the more stress that person is experiencing.

Look at the photograph, and if you find more than one or two differences, you may want to take a vacation or at least get a massage.

Click here to see the picture before reading more.

 

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Solutions to Brain Game 4:

1. LOCK – PIANO > KEY

2. SHIP – CARD > Deck

3. TREE – CAR > Trunk

4. SCHOOL – EYE > Pupil (Exam and Private are also possible)

5. PILLOW – COURT > Case

If you liked this exercise, you can find more pairs of words at Words in your brain.

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I hope you are having a great weekend! How did you do?

In your temporal lobe! Here is a drawing of the brain so you can see where your temporal lobe is (in green) on a profile view of the right side of your brain.

As you know your brain has two sides (two hemispheres) connected by the corpus callosum. So you have one temporal lobe on each side of the brain.

If you are right-handed, your language is stored mostly in your left temporal lobe. If you are left-handed, you are not so lateralized and your language is stored a bit on both sides of your brain in the temporal lobes.

Words in the brain are not stored randomly. They seemed to be quite organized. Research has shown that words that are often heard together (such as salt and pepper) or words that share some meaning (such as nurse and doctor) are connected or associated in the brain. Once you hear one, the other is activated.

Here is a brain exercise whose aim is to stimulate the connections or associations between words in your temporal lobe.

In the left column you have a pair of words. Your goal is to find a third word that is connected or associated with both of these two words.

The first pair is PIANO and LOCK. The answer is KEY. The word key is connected with both the word piano and the word lock: there are KEYS on a piano and you use a KEY to lock doors….

Key is what is called a homograph: a word that has more than one meaning but is always spelled the same.

Ready to stimulate connections in your temporal lobe(s)? Enjoy! (Solutions are below. Please don’t check them until you have trid to solve all the pairs!)

1. LOCK – PIANO

2. SHIP – CARD

3. TREE – CAR

4. SCHOOL – EYE

5. PILLOW – COURT

6. RIVER – MONEY

7. BED – PAPER

8. ARMY – WATER

9. TENNIS – NOISE

10. EGYPTIAN – MOTHER

11. SMOKER – PLUMBER

 

 

— This article was written by Pascale Michelon, Ph. D., for SharpBrains.com. Dr. Michelon has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and has worked as a Research Scientist at Washington University in Saint Louis, in the Psychology Department. She conducted several research projects to understand how the brain makes use of visual information and memorizes facts. She is now an Adjunct Faculty at Washington University, and teaches Memory Workshops in numerous retirement communities in the St Louis area.

 

 

Solutions

1. LOCK – PIANO > KEY

2. SHIP – CARD > Deck

3. TREE – CAR > Trunk

4. SCHOOL – EYE > Pupil (Exam and Private are also possible)

5. PILLOW – COURT > Case

6. RIVER – MONEY > Bank (Flow is also possible)

7. BED – PAPER > Sheet

8. ARMY – WATER > Tank

9. TENNIS – NOISE > Racket

10. EGYPTIAN – MOTHER > Mummy

11. SMOKER – PLUMBER > Pipe

A clarification: the “Developing Brain” in that title refers to k12 students’ brains…but, of course, readers of this blog know that our brains never stop developing, no matter our age…

A great conference, especially for K12 educators interested in learning more about brain research.