National Geographic

Virtual “Brain Games” roundtable: Why we can, and SHOULD, train our brains

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brainGames_new seasonIn prepa­ra­tion for the new sea­son of Nation­al Geo­graph­ic’s Brain Games, start­ing this Sun­day Feb­ru­ary 14th, their pro­duc­ers asked us to par­tic­i­pate in a vir­tu­al round­table around this thought-pro­vok­ing question:

Do you think indi­vid­u­als can train their brain to respond in a par­tic­u­lar way to cer­tain sit­u­a­tions, or do you think our brain’s innate “star­tle response” is too hard­wired to alter?

Short answer: [Read more…] about Vir­tu­al “Brain Games” round­table: Why we can, and SHOULD, train our brains

Anticipating the Privacy and Informed Consent issues of the Neurotechnology Era

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EEGwomanIn con­junc­tion with the new Nation­al Geo­graph­ic pro­gram “Break­through: Decod­ing the Brain,” com­ing this Sun­day, Novem­ber 15, at 9 pm ET, I was asked to pro­vide my per­spec­tive on a very provoca­tive question:

What if sci­en­tists were able to implant or erase mem­o­ries? For some, like those suf­fer­ing from PTSD this could be life-chang­ing, or do you think this is sci­en­tif­ic inno­va­tion gone too far?

The ques­tion is very time­ly. [Read more…] about Antic­i­pat­ing the Pri­va­cy and Informed Con­sent issues of the Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Era

Brain Games and Optical Illusions @ National Geographic

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optical illusion gamesSev­er­al Sharp­Brains friends rec­om­mend the recent 3‑part Nation­al Geo­graph­ic TV mini-series Brain Games focused on Per­cep­tion, Atten­tion and Mem­o­ry. You can learn about the series and exper­i­ment a good num­ber of visu­al illu­sions Here.

You may also enjoy this arti­cle on Visu­al Illu­sions in Art and Sci­ence, and these clas­sic illu­sions from our own brain teas­er library:
- The Muller-Lyer Illu­sion.
— Don’t try this with your part­ner, or you may fight.
— How many col­ors do you see in The Her­mann Grid?
— This is less obvi­ous than it may appear.
— Is this a cir­cle or what?
— Are these 2 rows par­al­lel?
— What do you see?