New Brain Teasers

#1

Brain Teasers
By Clive Thompson
02:00 AM Mar, 27, 2006

A while ago, the science writer Steven Johnson was looking at an old IQ test known as the "Raven Progressive Matrices." Developed in the 1930s, it shows you a set of geometric shapes and challenges you to figure out the next one in the series. It's supposed to determine your ability to do abstract reasoning, but as Johnson looked at the little cubic Raven figures, he was struck by something: They looked like Tetris.

A light bulb went off. If Tetris looked precisely like an IQ test, then maybe playing Tetris would help you do better at intelligence tests. Johnson spun this conceit into his brilliant book of last year, Everything Bad Is Good For You, in which he argued that video games actually make gamers smarter. With their byzantine key commands, obtuse rule-sets and dynamic simulations of everything from water physics to social networks, Johnson argued, video games require so much cognitive activity that they turn us into Baby Einsteins -- not dull robots.

I loved the book, but it made me wonder: If games can inadvertently train your brain, why doesn't someone make a game that does so intentionally?

I should have patented the idea. Next month, Nintendo is releasing Brain Age, a DS game based on the research of the Japanese neuroscientist Ryuta Kawashima. Kawashima found that if you measured the brain activity of someone who was concentrating on a single, complex task -- like studying quantum theory -- several parts of that person's brain would light up. But if you asked them to answer a rapid-fire slew of tiny, simple problems -- like basic math questions -- her or his brain would light up everywhere.

Hence the design of Brain Age. It offers you nine different tests, some of which seem incredibly basic -- like answering flash-card math questions -- and others which are fiendishly tricky. At one point, the DS shows flashes a grid of numbers for one second, then hides the digits; you have to try to remember where they were located in the grid, in ascending order. After you've played a few rounds, the DS calculates your "brain age": How mentally nimble you are, compared to the statistical averages of other people Kawashima measured. Age 20 is the best you can do -- the apex of your mental powers, apparently -- and by playing Brain Age every day, you can become mentally younger and younger.

Now, the science here is a little dubious. The idea of a discrete brain age is about as phrenologically suspect as the increasingly-disputed concept of IQ itself. Kawashima believes you improve your cognition by getting your brain to light up all over at once. But not all neuroscientists agree that this full-brain activity means you're thinking more intelligently.(continues...)

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,704 ... n_index_14

#2

this is called ghana yoga, i.e. mental masturbation, and is a key to understanding all Arts and Sciences.

#3

Quite interesting. I wonder how I would do in one of those games. I have always believed I matured before my time so maybe I'll give one of those games a go. But the concept in itself to use gaming which is very popular now to actually help people be smarter. Quite amazing.

#4

Not sure what the article said, but mental masturbation certainly struck a cord w/me...

#5

Careful with the mental masturbation or ideas will only cum to you in spurts.
I prefer a steady stream on consciousness..... /:D" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt=":D" />

#6

Damn, that was pretty good st4..! /laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":lol:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" />