• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Spanish
sb-logo-with-brain
  • Resources
    • Monthly eNewsletter
    • Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle
    • The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
    • How to evaluate brain training claims
    • Resources at a Glance
  • Brain Teasers
    • Top 25 Brain Teasers & Games for Teens and Adults
    • Brain Teasers for each Cognitive Ability
    • More Mind Teasers & Games for Adults of any Age
  • Virtual Summits
    • 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • Speaker Roster
    • Brainnovations Pitch Contest
    • 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
  • Report: Pervasive Neurotechnology
  • Report: Digital Brain Health
  • About
    • Mission & Team
    • Endorsements
    • Public Speaking
    • In the News
    • Contact Us

Brain Teasers to Exercise Our Minds: Our Top Five

July 6, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Here you have 4 of the most pop­u­lar brain games in our blog, plus a bonus stress man­age­ment tip.

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

Schoolbus

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?

Young-old 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.

Brain Teas­er 3. Can You Pay Attention?

basketballPlease 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.

——

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.

——

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

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain Teasers Tagged With: Brain-games, brain-teaser, homograph, inhibition-capacity, Mental-flexibility, mental-vitality, Mind-Games, stress-management, stress-tip, Stroop-Test

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. James says

    July 6, 2008 at 9:54

    For the 4th brain game num­ber 2: Ship — Card
    anoth­er answer is “Deal­er” (deal­er­ship, card dealer)

  2. Doug Kyle says

    July 7, 2008 at 1:20

    Very fun post! For Brain Game #4, I’d also sub­mit “Park” for the rela­tion between Tree and Car… but per­haps only for geo­gra­phies that call park­ing garages “Car Parks”.

  3. Gabrielle says

    July 7, 2008 at 8:54

    Ship — card = board?

  4. Gabrielle says

    July 7, 2008 at 8:56

    I would nev­er be able to answer the bus ques­tion because in my home city, bus­es have doors on both sides.

  5. Sharif says

    July 12, 2008 at 7:47

    The bus looks like it going away from you and you are look­ing at the tail­lights. And am I the only one that sees a cow in the pic­ture with dol­phin? I do get mas­sage every oth­er week…matbe should change to once a week.

  6. Alvaro says

    July 14, 2008 at 12:36

    Sharif, do please let us know if a week­ly mas­sage helps you see otherwise…

  7. Catherine says

    July 21, 2008 at 12:21

    The first word that popped into my head with ‘pil­low — court’ was ‘SHAM’! I’m not a cyn­i­cal per­son, I do have a rea­son­able lev­el of belief in our jus­tice sys­tem. (Real­ly.) It was just my sense of word­play humor indulging a bit­ing moment.

  8. Martin says

    July 22, 2008 at 8:08

    Very good, Cather­ine. I like that!

  9. Jim says

    August 15, 2008 at 4:51

    The ship — card con­nec­tion could also be “hold”

  10. Jim says

    August 15, 2008 at 4:54

    … and what’s this bogus sto­ry about the door not show­ing? The bus has no driver!

  11. Grace says

    August 27, 2008 at 5:00

    My ini­tial answer to what direc­tion the bus was trav­el­ling was ‘for­ward’.

  12. Suni Mills says

    August 28, 2008 at 3:57

    I am a teacher who is teach­ing about brain devel­ope­ment. I have no bud­get so look for free infor­ma­tion on the net.

  13. Juanita says

    September 14, 2008 at 8:01

    I love this site!

  14. serena says

    September 21, 2008 at 2:22

    I said not trav­el­ing — the wheels aren’t connected.

  15. serena says

    September 21, 2008 at 2:30

    For word pairs 2–4 I got oth­er answers that work: board, phone, and fish.

  16. AB says

    December 24, 2008 at 6:26

    for school and eye, you can also use the word “bag”.

Primary Sidebar

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Can you grow your hippocampus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
  2. How learning changes your brain
  3. To harness neuroplasticity, start with enthusiasm
  4. Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19
  5. Why you turn down the radio when you're lost
  6. Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging
  7. Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
  8. Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright
  9. What Educators and Parents Should Know About Neuroplasticity and Dance
  10. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
  11. Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
  12. Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
  13. What are cognitive abilities and how to boost them?
  14. Eight Tips To Remember What You Read
  15. Twenty Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

  1. You think you know the colors? Try the Stroop Test
  2. Check out this brief attention experiment
  3. Test your stress level
  4. Guess: Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?
  5. Quick brain teasers to flex two key men­tal mus­cles
  6. Count the Fs in this sentence
  7. Can you iden­tify Apple’s logo?
  8. Ten classic optical illu­sions to trick your mind
  9. What do you see?
  10. Fun Mental Rotation challenge
  • Check our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illusions

Join 12,563 readers exploring, at no cost, the latest in neuroplasticity and brain health.

By subscribing you agree to receive our free, monthly eNewsletter. We don't rent or sell emails collected, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Please check your inbox or spam folder in a couple minutes and confirm your subscription.

Get In Touch!

Contact Us

660 4th Street, Suite 205,
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA

About Us

SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science. We prepare general and tailored market reports, publish consumer guides, produce an annual global and virtual conference, and provide strategic advisory services.

© 2023 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy