Please find below link to article regarding recent brain research.
Read an article and discuss questions.
1. Do you agree with statement that the brain can be
relatively easy to fool? Examples: Optical illusions, dreams, hallucinations,
altered states of consciousness, and the placebo effect.
2. Do you believe in described experiments that mental
exercises can improve physical performance?
3. What do you think about mental exercises effects on brain?
Does summing fifteen three-digit numbers in two seconds sounds impressive? How
does it correlate to the fact that the game participant cannot remember them afterwards?
1. Do you agree with statement that the brain can be relatively easy to fool?
ReplyDeleteOf course I agree.
2. Do you believe in described experiments that mental exercises can improve physical performance?
I'm not sure, I would argue the opposite. That the physical excercise improves mental performace, because the brain has more oxygen, therefore it can function better.
3. What do you think about mental exercises effects on brain? Does summing fifteen three-digit numbers in two seconds sounds impressive? How does it correlate to the fact that the game participant cannot remember them afterwards?
Well, this is interesting when we think about autistic people, because surely, they do remember numbers if they want to. I think that game participants use thir short term memmory instead of the long term.
1. Do you agree with statement that the brain can be relatively easy to fool? Examples: Optical illusions, dreams, hallucinations, altered states of consciousness, and the placebo effect.
ReplyDeleteYes, but it doesn't happen very often outside of specially prepared test situations. The brain is tuned to work in real life situations and it does a good job at that. For example, the optical illusions are an advantage in real life, because without them your visual perception wouldn't be as good.
2. Do you believe in described experiments that mental exercises can improve physical performance?
I'm not sure either, the article doesn't make it clear whether actual muscle tissue grew in these experiments or if the improvements in physical performance were due to better technique in exercising.
3. What do you think about mental exercises effects on brain? Does summing fifteen three-digit numbers in two seconds sounds impressive? How does it correlate to the fact that the game participant cannot remember them afterwards?
Yes, it is impressive, I didn't know it was possible. I guess if there was another game where it was important to remember the numbers (and not just the result of adding them up) someone else could train for that and remember all the numbers. But it would probably take longer to achieve this.
1. Do you agree with statement that the brain can be relatively easy to fool? Examples: Optical illusions, dreams, hallucinations, altered states of consciousness, and the placebo effect.
ReplyDeleteHehe, question and answer. :) In my opinion the brain can be relatively easy to fool, there are many examples such as those above.
2. Do you believe in described experiments that mental exercises can improve physical performance?
Yes, each exercise improves, so why mental exercises can not improve physical performance? Only one question remains: To what extent we are able to train our brains? What is a sham and a hoax, and what you can do in real life? Is clairvoyance is fiction, or perhaps is only a well-trained brain?
3.1 What do you think about mental exercises effects on brain?
Definitely develop the brain, maybe develop faster thinking or logic.
3.2 Does summing fifteen three-digit numbers in two seconds sounds impressive?
Yes, but Does summing fifteen four-digit numbers in two seconds sounds more impressive? What is normal and what is not :), if anyone could do it it would not be so unbelievable.
3.3 How does it correlate to the fact that the game participant cannot remember them afterwards?
I do not know.I guess the that question is for wiser than me. ;)
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ReplyDeleteGenerally my opinion is close to Wiktor’s one.
ReplyDeleteI agree that our brain is easy to fool but I am not sure if we can say that “relatively”. I suppose that if somebody is good for instance in optical illusions he won’t be an easy object for cheating in this discipline. I may confirm this regularity on us – I think that we are more difficult for cheating by mathematical puzzles than average man in society.
I am not sure that mental exercises can improve physical performance directly. Presented article shows that mental exercises can improve results. So if we define that results are multiplication of mental power and physical power (and other things) then improving one of these two factors causes better results. Another question is if finishing learning English and starting thinking about fluency in it will be enough for progress in this area? ;-)
Rapid summing of many numbers sounds impressive - similarly to many other rare skills. I think that such summing doesn’t correlate with memorizing added numbers - maybe other neural connections are needed for these two activities.
1. Do you agree with statement that the brain can be relatively easy to fool? Examples: Optical illusions, dreams, hallucinations, altered states of consciousness, and the placebo effect.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard not to agree. Honestly, we even don't know how colors really look like etc. - just because most of us receive reality in the same way, we take this point of view as a "being normal". Whats more, our mind is a really powerful tool and we still don't know how it works (but still yes - it's so easy to fool).
2. Do you believe in described experiments that mental exercises can improve physical performance?
Yes - personally I can see the difference on my example of old man, who played chess since he was young - now, I can see a definitely improved consciousness in comparison to other men in his age.
3. What do you think about mental exercises effects on brain? Does summing fifteen three-digit numbers in two seconds sounds impressive? How does it correlate to the fact that the game participant cannot remember them afterwards?
I'm really curious - is there a term mental overtrained, because, as far as I can remember overtrained can cause mental diseases like schizophrenia (theory still unproved). But in general I'm happy that on our Ph.d. studies we got puzzle based learning ;].
Really impressive for me sounds "blindfold rubik's cube", but it's mostly working on a short term memory; the long term memory mastery is the most impressing for me.
I assume you have already seen it but maybe others will find it interesting..
Deleteblindfolded - 28.8
http://www.wimp.com/blindfoldedrecord/
normal - 5.66
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v_Km6cv6DU
After I first saw those I have bought my cube :)
1) Absolutly yes, I think in many ways you can fool your brain. For example through intensive training "conscious sleep" or the illusion of light.
ReplyDelete2) Of course it is! I think that all of these examples remind us that the mental exercise on the brain can improve the performance of the physical mind.
3) I think that all games logic developed to a certain extent our brains. The more we train our mind begins to resolve the faster game.
The first question seems to be a rhetorical one - it is a fact that the brain can be streamed into working in a desired way by using simple measures. The most popular example currently is 3D Cinema that gives you the illusion of reality.
ReplyDeleteAs for exercising our brain... I believe that the brain is just another muscle in our body (metaphorically speaking), and if you want it to be effective it needs to be used regularly and in diverse ways. I also believe a strong mind can help to obtain a strong body. During my university years I used to be part of the university athletic team and ran short distances. We often trained with other runners (long distance ones) and many of them told me that physical preparation is an important factor of success and you cannot achieve much if you don't work hard to get in shape. At the same time, they stated that the thing that lets you win is the ability to focus and push your body to reach its maximum... So yes, I do believe that mental exercises can improve physical performance.
1. Do you agree with statement that the brain can be relatively easy to fool? Examples: Optical illusions, dreams, hallucinations, altered states of consciousness, and the placebo effect.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it is not difficult to cheat our brain so I agree with this statement
2. Do you believe in described experiments that mental exercises can improve physical performance?
I think that exercises always improve our skills
3. What do you think about mental exercises effects on brain? Does summing fifteen three-digit numbers in two seconds sounds impressive? How does it correlate to the fact that the game participant cannot remember them afterwards?
In fact hard to say, as I wrote above the more you practice the theoretically achieve better results so and logic games are getting more and more popular.
1. Do you agree with statement that the brain can be relatively easy to fool? Examples: Optical illusions, dreams, hallucinations, altered states of consciousness, and the placebo effect.
ReplyDeleteYes I think it’s true. All the senses could probably be let’s say connected (in near future) to some kind of a virtual feed. I do not know to what extent those feed would be detailed enough to be indistinguishable from true reality.
2. Do you believe in described experiments that mental exercises can improve physical performance?
All the learning we perform through our lives could be called mental exercises and it comes in parallel with the physical performance improvement.
3. What do you think about mental exercises effects on brain? Does summing fifteen three-digit numbers in two seconds sounds impressive? How does it correlate to the fact that the game participant cannot remember them afterwards?
Yes sound impressive and it does not matter they do not remember them later.
1. Do you agree with statement that the brain can be relatively easy to fool? Examples: Optical illusions, dreams, hallucinations, altered states of consciousness, and the placebo effect.
ReplyDeleteI think that yes one of the most popular optic illusion is 3D movie:)
2. Do you believe in described experiments that mental exercises can improve physical performance?
I think that yes
3. What do you think about mental exercises effects on brain? Does summing fifteen three-digit numbers in two seconds sounds impressive? How does it correlate to the fact that the game participant cannot remember them afterwards?
I think that is impressive and this is good example that we can exercises our brain I was watch some program where one guy show how he exercises his memory to remember such digits and it was great:)