visual-processing

The neuroscience of positive, vision-based coaching

by

Good coach­es get results, respect, and awards. But what makes a coach or men­tor good?

One school of thought says they should hold their mentees to spe­cif­ic per­for­mance bench­marks and help them reach those bench­marks by tar­get­ing their per­son­al weaknesses.

But new research sug­gests a dif­fer­ent tack—namely, to nur­ture a mentee’s strengths, aspi­ra­tions for the future, and goals for per­son­al growth. Indeed, [Read more…] about The neu­ro­science of pos­i­tive, vision-based coaching

Driving with satellite navigation contributes to inattentional blindness

by

Satel­lite Nav­i­ga­tions Could Blind Dri­vers On Road (BioSchol­ar):

“Dri­ving with a satel­lite nav­i­ga­tion can make you blind to pedes­tri­ans, because try­ing to hold an image of the screen in your mind makes you ignore what is in front of your eyes, a new study has revealed. Focus­ing on [Read more…] about Dri­ving with satel­lite nav­i­ga­tion con­tributes to inat­ten­tion­al blindness

Dr. C. Shawn Green on Training Conditions For Video Games to Result in Real Brain-based Benefits

by

Dr. Green will dis­cuss the Train­ing Con­di­tions For Video Games to Result in Real Brain-based Ben­e­fits, at the upcom­ing 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (June 7–14th, 2012).

Dr. C. Shawn Green is the Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor at Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son. Dr. Green’s [Read more…] about Dr. C. Shawn Green on Train­ing Con­di­tions For Video Games to Result in Real Brain-based Benefits

New Interview Series (Part 1 of 10): Why Care About Brain Fitness Innovation?

by

Every Mon­day dur­ing the next 10 weeks we’ll dis­cuss here what lead­ing indus­try, sci­ence and pol­i­cy experts –all of whom will speak at the upcom­ing 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit (March 30th — April 1st, 2011)– have to say about emerg­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges to address, over the next 10 years, the grow­ing brain-relat­ed soci­etal demands.

With­out fur­ther ado, here you have what four Sum­mit Speak­ers say…

—

Alvaro Pas­cual-Leone is the Direc­tor of the Beren­son-Allen Cen­ter for Non-Inva­sive Brain Stim­u­la­tion at Har­vard Med­ical School.

1. How would you define “brain fit­ness” vs. “phys­i­cal fitness”?

Phys­i­cal fit­ness can refer to an over­all or gen­er­al state of health and well-being. How­ev­er, it is also often used more specif­i­cal­ly to refer to the abil­i­ty to per­form a giv­en activ­i­ty, occu­pa­tion, or sport.

Sim­i­lar­ly brain fit­ness might be used to refer to a gen­er­al state of healthy, opti­mized brain func­tion, or a more spe­cif­ic brain-based abil­i­ty to process cer­tain, spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion, enable cer­tain motor actions, or sup­port cer­tain cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. Impor­tant­ly though, I would argue [Read more…] about New Inter­view Series (Part 1 of 10): Why Care About Brain Fit­ness Innovation?

Update: Global Consortium for Neurocognitive Fitness Innovation

by

As men­tioned before, the World Eco­nom­ic Forum asked me to write “an 800 words sum­ma­ry of your most com­pelling action­able idea on the chal­lenges of geron­tol­ogy”, in prepa­ra­tion for the Inau­gur­al Sum­mit of the Glob­al Agen­da that will take place Novem­ber 7 to 9th in Dubai.A good num­ber of Sharp­Brains read­ers and clients offered their insights — and expressed an inter­est in read­ing the draft. So below you have — a pro­pos­al to cre­ate a Glob­al Con­sor­tium for Neu­rocog­ni­tive Fit­ness Inno­va­tion, build­ing on our exist­ing mar­ket research and advi­so­ry ser­vices work. Your thoughts?

—–

The Con­text

Grow­ing Demands on Our Brains: Pic­ture 6.7 bil­lion Prim­i­tive Brains inhab­it­ing a Knowl­edge Soci­ety where life­long learn­ing and mas­ter­ing con­stant change in com­plex envi­ron­ments are crit­i­cal for pro­duc­tive work, health and per­son­al fulfillment.

Wel­come to Plan­et Earth, 2008.

Fur­ther stretched by increased longevi­ty: Now pic­ture close to 1 bil­lion of those brains over the age of 60 – and please remem­ber that, less than 100 years ago, life expectan­cy was between 30 to 40 years. The rapid­ly evolv­ing Knowl­edge Soci­ety is plac­ing new and enor­mous demands on our “prim­i­tive” human brains. And the longer our lifes­pans, the more obvi­ous the “cog­ni­tive gap”. Hence, from a health point of view, the grow­ing [Read more…] about Update: Glob­al Con­sor­tium for Neu­rocog­ni­tive Fit­ness Innovation

Allstate: Can we improve Driver Safety using Posit Science InSight?

by

Insur­ance com­pa­ny All­state and brain fit­ness soft­ware devel­op­er Posit Sci­ence just announced (see press release Pro­tect­ing Penn­syl­va­nia Dri­vers, One Brain at a Time) a very intel­li­gent initiative:

Video exer­cis­es aid dri­ving skills (Chica­go Tribune)

-“All­state, which called the Posit pro­gram “poten­tial­ly the next big break­through in auto­mo­bile safe­ty,” said it expects its soft­ware exer­cis­es to reduce risky dri­ving maneu­vers by up to 40 per­cent and improve stop­ping dis­tance by an aver­age of 22 feet when trav­el­ing at 55 miles per hour.”

-“We’ll look to see whether over the next six to nine months there will be a reduc­tion in” the num­ber of acci­dents between the group par­tic­i­pat­ing in the video exer­cis­es and those sit­ting out, said Tom War­den, assis­tant vice pres­i­dent of All­state’s research and plan­ning center.

Tom Warden Allstate

I am for­tu­nate to inter­view Tom War­den, Assis­tant Vice Pres­i­dent and Leader of Allstate’s Research and Plan­ning Cen­ter, based in Men­lo Park, California.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez: Tom, thank you for your time. Can you please explain the con­text behind this new ini­tia­tive that you just announced?

Tom War­den: Our research cen­ter is con­stant­ly look­ing for new ideas to improve the dri­ving behav­ior of dri­vers of all ages. Recent­ly we have paid extra empha­sis on ways to improve the safe­ty of old­er drivers.

Let me pro­vide some back­ground here. All­state, as a com­pa­ny, has always been one of the pio­neers in help­ing to intro­duce new safe­ty mea­sures. For exam­ple, we were among the pio­neers in the 60s to advo­cate for manda­to­ry use of seat­ing belts, giv­en research stud­ies on the ben­e­fits for dri­vers and pas­sen­gers alike. More recent­ly, we helped lob­by for wider adop­tion of airbags, an effec­tive but expen­sive way of pro­tec­tion that only became main­stream when man­u­fac­tur­ers were required to include them.

Let’s talk now about your agree­ment with Posit Sci­ence. What will hap­pen over the next months?

The first thing we are doing is to con­duct a research study to ana­lyze the real-life impact of Posit Sci­ence InSight, a com­put­er-based cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­gram, on acci­dent rates. We know that as dri­vers get old­er [Read more…] about All­state: Can we improve Dri­ver Safe­ty using Posit Sci­ence InSight?