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puzzles

UC study finds near-transfer of cognitive training to be necessary (yet not sufficient) for far-transfer, broader benefits

June 21, 2022 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

Guicheng “Ariel” Tan / UCI Work­ing Mem­o­ry & Plas­tic­i­ty Lab

Who ben­e­fits from brain train­ing, and why? (UCI release):

If you are skilled at play­ing puz­zles on your smart­phone or tablet, what does it say about how fast you learn new puz­zles, or more broad­ly, how well can you focus in school or at work? In the lan­guage of psy­chol­o­gists, does “near trans­fer” pre­dict “far transfer”?

A team of psy­chol­o­gists from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Irvine and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, River­side reports in Nature Human Behav­ior that peo­ple who show near trans­fer are more like­ly to show far trans­fer. For a per­son skilled at play­ing a game, such as Wor­dle, near trans­fer refers to being skilled at sim­i­lar games, such as a cross­word puz­zle. An exam­ple of far trans­fer for this per­son would be the abil­i­ty to bet­ter focus on dai­ly life activ­i­ties. [Read more…] about UC study finds near-trans­fer of cog­ni­tive train­ing to be nec­es­sary (yet not suf­fi­cient) for far-trans­fer, broad­er benefits

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain training, Brain-Plasticity, brain-training-games, cognitive-abilities, far transfer, games, Memory-Training, near transfer, neuroplasticity, puzzles, video-game, working-memory-training

Update: Promote brain plasticity by taking your daily exercise pill — physical and cognitive

July 30, 2021 by Alvaro Fernandez

By lordzg/ shutterstock.com

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing nine sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try devel­op­ments to help pro­mote life­long brain health.

#1. A must-read, and must-prac­tice: Pro­mote brain plas­tic­i­ty and keep your mind at ease by tak­ing your dai­ly “exer­cise pill”

#2. If cog­ni­tive stim­u­la­tion came in a pill it’d be worth a quadrillion, give or take a few tril­lions: Study finds that cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty in old age may delay the onset of demen­tia by 5 years

#3. “A young child with low cog­ni­tive con­trol is also more like­ly to devel­op anx­i­ety lat­er on in child­hood, while one with a high­er capac­i­ty will be more resilient to stress. Rais­ing cog­ni­tive con­trol could both treat anx­i­ety in young chil­dren and poten­tial­ly pre­vent it from becom­ing worse over time” — Help­ing young brains fight off anx­i­ety by train­ing and rais­ing cog­ni­tive control

#4. The neu­ro­science behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

“In a nation­al sur­vey last fall, 36% of adults in the U.S. – includ­ing 61% of young adults – report­ed feel­ing “seri­ous lone­li­ness” dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. Sta­tis­tics like these sug­gest peo­ple would be itch­ing to hit the social scene. But if the idea of mak­ing small talk at a crowd­ed hap­py hour sounds ter­ri­fy­ing to you, you’re not alone. Near­ly half of Amer­i­cans report­ed feel­ing uneasy about return­ing to in-per­son inter­ac­tion regard­less of vac­ci­na­tion status.”
#5. Fas­ci­nat­ing to see mind­ful­ness apps/ pro­grams going main­stream: Evi­dence-based, employ­er-focused med­i­ta­tion pro­gram eMind­ful acquired by dig­i­tal behav­ioral change firm Won­dr Health
#6. AI-pow­ered Woe­bot rais­es $90M to scale up dig­i­tal self-ther­a­py platform
“The stress of the pan­dem­ic has made an exist­ing men­tal health cri­sis even more alarm­ing. We’re see­ing this first­hand in ado­les­cents in class­rooms across the coun­try and in adults who are report­ing symp­toms of anx­i­ety and depres­sion at a rate four times pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els” — Ian Chiu, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Owl Ventures

#7. Study shows promis­ing results of EEG-based brain train­ing in help­ing adults with ADHD

“The study demon­strates for the first time the ben­e­fi­cial neu­robe­hav­ioral effect of a sin­gle NFB ses­sion in adult ADHD, and rein­forces the notion that Event-relat­ed poten­tials (ERPs) could serve as use­ful diagnostic/prognostic mark­ers of exec­u­tive dysfunction.”

#8. Sys­tem­at­ic review calls for ear­ly tar­get­ed inter­ven­tions to help babies and tod­dlers with cere­bral pal­sy har­ness time win­dow with max­i­mum brain plasticity

“Cur­rent­ly, ear­ly diag­no­sis of high-risk CP offers the oppor­tu­ni­ty for ear­ly inter­ven­tion at a crit­i­cal devel­op­men­tal plas­tic­i­ty win­dow. The ear­li­er we inter­vene, the bet­ter the out­come is.”

#9. UK report iden­ti­fies oppor­tu­ni­ties and gaps for dig­i­tal tech to improve, not harm, men­tal health

“Sup­port for men­tal health has need­ed improve­ment for many years in the UK. The path­ways for access­ing ser­vices are con­vo­lut­ed, wait­ing lists are exten­sive, and out­comes are poor over the long term … Com­ing up with new ways to main­tain good men­tal health, in a pre­ven­ta­tive way, will be as essen­tial as pro­vid­ing tools for acute care and we believe tech­nol­o­gy has a sig­nif­i­cant role to play.” — Dr Peter Bloom­field, FCC’s head of Pol­i­cy and Research

Wish­ing you a hap­py and healthy month of August,

The Sharp­Brains Team

NB: Please remem­ber that, if you’re look­ing for some fun and var­ied cog­ni­tive exer­cise, you can always try these 25 Brain Teasers, Puz­zles & Games that Sharp­Brains read­ers have enjoyed the most.

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Brain Teasers, Brain-games, Brain-Plasticity, brains, cognitive-control, cognitive-stimulation, EEG, eMindful, mental health, mindfulness apps, neuroscience, puzzles, Woebot, Wondr Health

Brain Teaser: What shirt size you need?

May 22, 2020 by Maria Lando

You have been invit­ed to a fundrais­ing gala at your old col­lege (via Zoom of course) and decide that this black-tie event demands a super white Ital­ian shirt, like the one you bought years ago for your wedding.

When you find and brave­ly try the wed­ding shirt on (size 16), your wife notices that the col­lar suf­fo­cates you — you DO need about 1/4″ more space every­where in-between your neck and the col­lar all around your neck.

So you’ll need a new shirt.

What size shirt do you need to buy?  [Read more…] about Brain Teas­er: What shirt size you need?

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: brain puzzles for adults, brain-teaser-games, cognitive-skills, puzzle, puzzles

Brain teaser to stimulate your mental imagery, spatial rotation … and appetite

April 17, 2020 by Caroline Latham

__

Here’s a fun puz­zle that a friend shared over zoom a few days ago.

Chal­lenge: How can you cut a cake into eight equal pieces with only three cuts?

Note: The cake in the puz­zle is not nec­es­sar­i­ly the one pic­tured above 🙂 Imag­ine your own cake.

Check the answer below only after you’ve tried… [Read more…] about Brain teas­er to stim­u­late your men­tal imagery, spa­tial rota­tion … and appetite

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers Tagged With: brain games for adults, brain teaser for adults, Brain Teasers, brain-teaser, brain-teaser-games, cognitive, cognitive-abilities, mental imagery, puzzle, puzzle games for adults, puzzles, spatial rotation

Tough brain teasers, with answers, courtesy of NSA employees

August 29, 2016 by SharpBrains

—–

Accord­ing to NSA’s Puz­zle Peri­od­i­cal, “Intel­li­gence. It’s the abil­i­ty to think abstract­ly. Chal­lenge the unknown. Solve the impos­si­ble. NSA employ­ees work on some of the world’s most demand­ing and exhil­a­rat­ing high-tech engi­neer­ing chal­lenges. Apply­ing com­plex algo­rithms and express­ing dif­fi­cult cryp­to­graph­ic prob­lems in terms of math­e­mat­ics is part of the work NSA employ­ees do every day.”

You can try a cou­ple of their recent, and quite tough, brain teasers here:

  • August Puz­zle Peri­od­i­cal: $50 for All
  • July Puz­zle Peri­od­i­cal: First or Second?

More brain teasers, games and illu­sions here.

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers Tagged With: Brain Teasers, brain teasers with answers, intelligence, puzzles

Brain Fitness Conversations in November: Live Q&A with Book Authors

October 12, 2011 by Alvaro Fernandez

AARP recent­ly released a list of Top 5 Best Books for Brain Fit­ness. SharpBrains.com is hon­ored to have pub­lished one of those Top 5 books and to present this Live Q&A Series for you to ask ques­tions to the authors of 3 of those best books on brain fit­ness. Par­tic­i­pants will sub­mit writ­ten ques­tions, mod­er­a­tors will select the most impor­tant and rel­e­vant ques­tions, and book authors will write their answers for every­one to read.

  • Novem­ber 1st, 2011, 2–3pm ET: Dr. Gary Small, author of The Mem­o­ry Bible
  • Novem­ber 15th, 2011, 2–3pm ET: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, co-author of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness
  • Novem­ber 22nd, 2011, 2–3pm ET: Dr. Paul Nuss­baum, author of Save Your Brain
  • (in Span­ish) Novem­ber 29th, 2011, 2–3pm ET: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, co-autor de The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness [Read more…] about Brain Fit­ness Con­ver­sa­tions in Novem­ber: Live Q&A with Book Authors

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: AARP, aging, Alzheimers, baby-boomers, best books, brain-book, brain-books, Brain-Fitness, brain-fitness-books, brain-fitness-products, Brain-health, capacidades cognitivas, capacidades emocionales, Cerebro, cognitive-health, Gary-Small, memory, memory lapses, memory performance, memory-techniques, neuroplasticidad, neuroplasticity, neuropsychologist, Paul Nussbaum, puzzles, quizzes, salud cerebral, self-tests, senior moment

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