Workouts at the (New Yorker) brain gym

Good arti­cle on brain fit­ness and applied neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty in the July 29th edi­tion of The New York­er, fea­tur­ing many Sharp­Brains friends. Men­tal­ly fit — Work­outs at the brain gym: “As recent­ly as a few decades ago, most biol­o­gists thought that the brain was ful­ly formed dur­ing child­hood and, like a pho­to­graph after it’s been devel­oped, was…

Read More

(Some) New Yorker articles are bogus

I love read­ing the New York­er. I have writ­ten before about bogus brain games, and about bogus brain train­ing claims. We have pub­lished a 10-ques­­tion check­list to help con­sumers make informed deci­sions. All this is to say I was sur­prised to read a recent New York­er blog arti­cle titled “Brain games are bogus.” If you…

Read More

Changing our Minds…by Reading Fiction

(Edi­tor’s Note: we are pleased to bring you this arti­cle thanks to our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Greater Good Mag­a­zine.) Chang­ing our Minds By imag­in­ing many pos­si­ble worlds, argues nov­el­ist and psy­chol­o­gist Kei­th Oat­ley, fic­tion helps us under­stand our­selves and oth­ers. ‑By Kei­th Oat­ley For more than two thou­sand years peo­ple have insist­ed that read­ing fic­tion is good…

Read More