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optical-illusions

Ten resources, brain teasers and illusions to celebrate Brain Awareness Week 2023

March 15, 2023 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

We invite you to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week (March 13–19th, 2023) by learn­ing more about that key yet often-over­looked organ and by putting it to good use via some fun brain teasers and illusions 🙂

  1. Can you con­nect these pairs of words?
  2. Try these quick teasers to chal­lenge your work­ing memory
  3. Three clas­sic opti­cal illu­sions, explained
  4. Test your cog­ni­tive skills with these proverbs
  5. Math teas­er: Will you fin­ish your the­sis on time?
  6. What do you see? And, can you unsee it?
  7. Study exam­ines com­mon cog­ni­tive bias­es such as this one and ways to mit­i­gate them

About Brain Awareness Week:

Every March, Brain Aware­ness Week (BAW) unites the efforts of part­ner orga­ni­za­tions world­wide in a cel­e­bra­tion of the brain for peo­ple of all ages. Activ­i­ties are lim­it­ed only by the orga­niz­ers’ imag­i­na­tions and include open days at neu­ro­science labs; exhi­bi­tions about the brain; lec­tures on brain-relat­ed top­ics; social media cam­paigns; dis­plays at libraries and com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters; class­room work­shops; and more. This year BAW takes place March 13–19th, 2023.

  1. Vis­it the Cal­en­dar of Events Here
  2. Try many games, rid­dles, and puz­zles Here
  3. Explore use­ful fact­sheets Here

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Brain Teasers, brain-awareness-week, cognitive biases, cognitive-skills, fun brain teasers, optical-illusions, quick teasers, Working-memory

If you’re a fruit fly, tease your mind with this optical illusion. Humans welcome too.

January 26, 2021 by SharpBrains

Rotat­ing snake illu­sion. Cred­it: Akiyoshi Kitaoka

Please move your gaze around the image, rest­ing from time to time.

Then, fix your gaze at a point, and see what happens.

You will prob­a­bly first see ‘snakes’ rotat­ing, some clock­wise, oth­ers anti­clock­wise, and then stop. [Read more…] about If you’re a fruit fly, tease your mind with this opti­cal illu­sion. Humans wel­come too.

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers Tagged With: Brain Teasers, cognitive, cognitive-skills, optical illusion, optical-illusions, perception, rotating snake illusion, visual-perception

Update: 200 common prescription medications increase depression risk

June 28, 2018 by SharpBrains

___

Dear read­er,

Time for Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter.

It’s been a busy month, once again bring­ing to the fore­front the lim­i­ta­tions of our cur­rent health­care sys­tem and, on the pos­i­tive side, the grow­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve Brain Health and Men­tal Health for all, if we pay atten­tion to (and act on) lat­est research, think­ing and tools.

New research:

  • When Health­care ignores Men­tal Health: 200 com­mon pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tions increase depres­sion risk
  • Report finds only 35% of Cana­di­an youth get the phys­i­cal activ­i­ty rec­om­mend­ed for brain health
  • Study finds train­ing-induced neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty even in patients with chron­ic trau­mat­ic brain injury (TBI)

New thinking:

  • Want to feel more Calm, get some Head­space, and prac­tice Mind­ful­ness Daily?
  • (Slid­edeck) Why the Future of Brain Enhance­ment and Men­tal Health is Dig­i­tal and Pervasive
  • Study finds the lim­its of putting one­self in another’s shoes (instead, ask and listen)

New tools:

  • Sleep-focused neu­rotech firm Dreem rais­es $35M from John­son&John­son Inno­va­tion and Bpifrance
  • FDA clears Mind­Maze GO neu­rore­ha­bil­i­ta­tion plat­form, eas­ing access to con­tin­ued out­pa­tient therapy
  • From Angry Birds to brain map­ping: The Gam­i­fi­ca­tion of Neuroscience

 

Final­ly, we invite you to tease your mind with these four opti­cal illu­sions. Sur­pris­ing, aren’t they?

Have a great month of July,

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain-enhancement, Brain-health, Brain-Plasticity, Calm, depression risk, Dreem, FDA, gamification, Headspace, healthcare, Mental-Health, mind-teasers, MindMaze, neuroplascitiy, neuroscience, optical-illusions, Physical-activity, prescription medications, sleep, TBI

Is your brain ready for Monday? Tease your mind with these four optical illusions

June 18, 2018 by Dr. Pascale Michelon

___

A great way to learn more about our brains and minds is to look at how we can trick them–that is, to see how we react to brain teasers and visu­al illusions.

Below are four fun opti­cal illu­sions that let us learn­ about our visu­al system…ready?

(answers and expla­na­tions at the bottom)

___

[Read more…] about Is your brain ready for Mon­day? Tease your mind with these four opti­cal illusions

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers Tagged With: Brain Teasers, frontal cortex, mind-teasers, occipital lobe, optical-illusions, parietal--lobe, temporal lobe, visual-illusions

Test your brain and mind with these nine classic optical Illusions

June 2, 2017 by Dr. Pascale Michelon

Are the two orange cir­cles of the same size? 

One way to learn more about our brains and minds is to look at how we can trick them–that is, to see how we react to brain teasers and visu­al illusions.

The brain has two hemi­spheres, each divid­ed into four lobes. Each lobe is (large­ly) respon­si­ble for dif­fer­ent func­tions. For instance the frontal cor­tex (in yel­low) is respon­si­ble for deci­sion mak­ing and plan­ning; the tem­po­ral lobe (in pur­ple) for lan­guage and mem­o­ry; the pari­etal lobe (in green) for spa­tial skills, and the occip­i­tal lobe (in red) is entire­ly devot­ed to vision: It is thus the place where visu­al illu­sions hap­pen..

Below are 9 opti­cal illu­sions that com­bine fun and learn­ing about our visu­al sys­tem. We know you know there is a trick since these are illu­sions… but don’t try to be smarter than your brain. Enjoy being surprised!

(You’ll find answers and expla­na­tions at the end of the article)

—

[Read more…] about Test your brain and mind with these nine clas­sic opti­cal Illusions

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers Tagged With: Brain Teasers, frontal cortex, mind-teasers, occipital lobe, optical-illusions, parietal--lobe, temporal lobe, visual-illusions

Visual illusions to tease our brains and minds

October 8, 2015 by SharpBrains

Café_wall_illusion.svg

Why Opti­cal Illu­sions Like These Make Your Brain Go Hay­wire (Wired):

“Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol researchers dis­cov­ered this illu­sion in the ear­ly 1970s while look­ing at the tiled wall of a café. Hence the name, Café Wall Illu­sion. The gray lines in between the rows of white and black squares seem to con­verge, but they are actu­al­ly par­al­lel. Your brain, over­whelmed by the intense and close­ly-spaced black-and-white con­trasts, sees the gray lines as part of the tile either above or below it. The lines end up appear­ing high­er on alter­nat­ing sides, cre­at­ing the trape­zoidal illusion.”

More visu­al illu­sions and brain teasers:

  • 12 fun illu­sions at Wired
  • Test your brain with these 10 visu­al illusions
  • A brain teas­er for each cog­ni­tive ability

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers Tagged With: Brain Teasers, brain-teaser, cog­ni­tive ability, optical-illusions, visual-illusions

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