How often do you review and comment on a doc­u­ment while talk­ing on the phone with a colleague about an unrelated matter? Or think about your prob­lems at work while help­ing your child with his homework? Read the rest of this entry »

How often do you review and comment on a doc­u­ment while talk­ing on the phone with a colleague about an unrelated matter? Or think about your prob­lems at work while help­ing your child with his homework? Read the rest of this entry »

Despite the increasing visual media we are increasingly exposed to, reading is still an important skill. Whether it is school textbooks, online newspapers or regular books, people still read, though not as much as they used to. One reason that many people don’t read much is that they don’t read well. For them, Read the rest of this entry »

In case you missed them, here you have a few recent brain teasers and games. t is always good to stim­u­late our minds and to learn a bit about how our brains work.

• Novem­ber 2011: Math Brain Teaser: Unfin­ished Thesis
• Octo­ber 2011: Archimedes Grave
• Octo­ber 2011: Opti­cal Illu­sions @ National Geographic
• Sep­tem­ber 2011: A Brain Teaser for each Cog­ni­tive Ability
• August 2011: Test your atten­tional focus: is multi-tasking good

You can find many more brain teasers and games, for kids and adults, by visiting the Top 50 Brain Teasers and Games that our readers have enjoyed the most. Enjoy!

If you’ve spent any time on YouTube over the last few years (and you know you have), you’ve likely seen the video of the invisible gorilla experiment (if you’ve somehow missed it, catch yourself up here). The researchers who conducted that study, Dan Simons and Chris Chabris, didn’t realize that they were about to create an instant classic—a psychology study mentioned alongside the greats, and known well outside the slim confines of psych wonks. Milgram taught us about our sheepish obedience to authority; Mischel used marshmallows to teach us about delayed gratification; and Simons and Chabris used a faux gorilla to teach us that we are not the masters of attention we think we are.

The duo’s new book Read the rest of this entry »