What is mental self rotation? It is the ability to imagine yourself in different locations in space and imagine your body moving in space. This is an ability that is used in different everyday activities such as navigating in an environment or reading a map.

- Ability involved: egocentric spatial transformations (yes, that is the scientific expression) or mental self rotation.

- Brain areas involved: mostly parietal lobes.

Let’s take an example. Imagine that you plan to go to a new Walgreens’ location. You wonder whether going North on Big Bend Avenue you would have to make a right or a left turn onto Forsyth Blvd to get to Walgreens. You then look at the map that your spouse has laid out on the table. It turns out that the map is upside down so your perspective is not aligned with the one shown on the map (see Figure 1 just below, Box A). How do you get the answer to your question? Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Pascale Michelon recently shared with our readers which brain areas and cognitive functions are engaged as we solve the type of brain teaser known as Spot the Difference, where we have to find the differences between two versions of one image: Read the rest of this entry »

How many differences can you spot?

You have seen and maybe tried that exercise or game in the Sunday paper many times: find 5 differences between the two images.

You may like it or not. You may think it is only for kids. But it is a GREAT brain exercise!

Let’s see what cognitive processes and which brain areas are involved in this exercise:

Read the rest of this entry »