#18. Mind teaser to exercise your frontal and parietal lobes

Let’s now exer­cise our frontal lobes (that deal with work­ing mem­o­ry and atten­tion, among oth­er things) and pari­etal lobes (visu­al interpretation). 

Quick!

1. Count the num­ber of times the num­ber “6” appears below (you may need to scroll down).

2. Then, count the total of both “3“s and “7“s, try­ing to add the total num­ber of both as you see either (this is, don’t just count all the “3“s, and then the “7“s, but both at the same time)

1234467889974674657865876576576 3576573625432657346578436578342 2732188582735827456724687343828 7672878682768723682376783768267 2647648823178346432764876774653 7436574386581483627868653873465

 

The most impor­tant thing here is not to get the right answer, but to try. This type of exer­cise has been used by the mil­i­tary to improve atten­tion for decades (now there are more advanced, com­put­er-based, tools, but this keeps being fun).

Next brain teas­er in Sharp­Brains’ top 25 series:

71 Comments

  1. Alvaro on September 15, 2007 at 3:57

    Glad you got some good exercise!



  2. nisha loyalka on October 1, 2007 at 6:52

    6’s 33.total of 3’s and 7 is 59



  3. Alvaro on October 1, 2007 at 9:16

    Per­fect, Nisha!



  4. Exercise on October 1, 2007 at 9:24

    I got it right i was shocked, though.I kept miss­ing 3’s and see­ing them after i moved down to the next line. i was sure that num­ber would be wrong!



  5. Jazz on November 6, 2007 at 10:12

    i got

    > 58 3’s and 7’s and
    > 33 6’s



  6. Jim on November 28, 2007 at 5:36

    Heh, I thought we were sup­posed count seper­ate­ly the 3s and 7s… 33 6s, 23 3s and 36 7s



  7. Airos on November 29, 2007 at 1:10

    I thught I would count well the num­ber of 6’s, and lat­ter I would count less 3’s and 7’s that are. The result is inverse, I count­ed 32 6’s (-1) and the 59 3’s and 7’s.



  8. roshan on December 1, 2007 at 9:45

    i got 92



  9. Sally on December 18, 2007 at 2:34

    Read the direc­tions! The point of the excer­sice is to count the 3s & 7s sep­a­rate­ly, in one scan; not combinatorially.



  10. ET on January 1, 2008 at 1:46

    I tried to scan all three num­bers sep­a­rate­ly at the same time at first…going crazy try­ing to keep each apart!!! Then did it as intruct­ed here and that was easy. Still got 33 6’s, and 58 3′ and 7’s.



  11. Mitch on January 4, 2008 at 4:30

    O. I got 33 x 6
    But i thought you were sup­posed to count the 3’s and 7’s togeth­er but keep them seper­ate :P ugh what a work­out, espe­cial­ly see­ing as i had to talk to my boss for a minute half way through. 23 x 3’s, 35 x 7’s.



  12. Mark on January 6, 2008 at 8:10

    33 and 59



  13. miss on January 11, 2008 at 11:33

    33 — 6
    59 — 3 & 7



  14. Theresa on January 24, 2008 at 7:15

    33 and 58



  15. karpagam on February 1, 2008 at 11:13

    i got
    6–33 times
    3 & 7’s ‑57

    guess they r close!



  16. Kathy on February 4, 2008 at 9:21

    I count­ed 32 6’s and 54 3’s and 7’s. Think I will open this page on a reg­u­lar basis as I will be 73 next week and don’t want to lose my abil­i­ty to think.



  17. Alvaro on February 4, 2008 at 7:28

    Hel­lo Kathy! thanks for stop­ping by. If you are going to do this oftent, you can also change the dig­its you are count­ing, so the exer­cise always offer nov­el­ty. See you soon



  18. Laura on February 11, 2008 at 3:53

    I got 33 6s, 23 3s and 36 7s, for a total of 59 on the 3s and 7s. I could­n’t believe I got it right!



  19. lee martin on February 13, 2008 at 4:30

    how can a man work on his brain that increas­es intia­tive and increase self reg­u­la­to­ry behaviors



  20. Alvaro on February 13, 2008 at 8:33

    hel­lo Lee,

    quick gen­er­al suggestions:

    1) ini­tia­tive: with prac­tice, start­ing small, devel­op­ing con­fi­dence, and expand­ing scope.

    2) self-reg­u­la­tion: prac­tices like breath­ing and visu­al­iza­tion, per­haps com­ple­ment­ed with tools for bet­ter plan­ning and reflec­tion (diary, To Do lists), or biofeed­back. See these articles

    https://sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/09/17/judith-beck-train-your-brain-to-think-like-a-thin-person/

    https://sharpbrains.com/blog/2006/11/21/emotional-self-regulation-and-biofeedback-freezeframer/



  21. Bill on March 8, 2008 at 2:41

    I got the cor­rect answers on my 2nd try.

    But I did it by count­ing down each col­umn, instead of across rows.



  22. radhika on March 11, 2008 at 12:14

    33 and 59.…
    it was great.



  23. Desire'e on March 15, 2008 at 1:44

    Wow, I was shocked to scroll down and see that I got it right, 33 and 59. Cool.



  24. MCameronM on April 4, 2008 at 4:55

    59–3 & 7 32 6’s now I got to go back and count the 6’s again



  25. Lmnop on June 18, 2008 at 5:52

    I thought we were sup­posed to add all 3–I got 92.



About SharpBrains

SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

Newsletter

Subscribe to our e-newsletter

* indicates required

Got the book?