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Thursday, December 26, 2013

The Brain


Can Exercising Your Brain Prevent Memory Loss?

Scientists all over the world are starting to agree that stimulating the brain can improve brain power. Numerous studies show that activities such as interactive games can help maintain key cognitive functions. According to a new study presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 61st Annual Meeting, participating in certain mental activities, like reading magazines or crafting in middle age or later in life, may delay or prevent memory loss. The study involved 197 people between the ages of 70 and 89 with mild cognitive impairment, or diagnosed memory loss, and 1,124 people that age with no memory problems. The study found that during later years, reading books, participating in computer activities, playing games and doing craft activities such as pottery or quilting led to a 30 to 50 percent decrease in the risk of developing memory loss compared to people who did not do those activities. 
 Reference:  http://www.fitbrains.com/blog/brain-excercise/



Saturday, December 14, 2013

Language and the Brain (inphographic.



Via: Voxy Blog

You Can Only Remember 3 to 4 Things At A Time (The Magic Number 3 or 4)




 
 

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#3 — You Can Only Remember 3 to 4 Things At A Time (The Magic Number 3 or 4)

What Makes Them Click
7 +/- 2???
3 or 4???
Those of you who have been in the field of usability or user experience for a few years have probably heard the phrase “The Magic Number 7 Plus Or Minus 2″. This refers, actually, to what I would call an urban legend. Here’s the legend part:
Legend: “A guy named Miller did research and wrote a paper showing that people can remember from 5 to 9 (7 plus or minus 2) things, and that people can process 7 plus or minus 2 pieces of information at a time. So you should only put 5 to 9 items on a menu, or have 5 to 9 tabs on a screen”.
Have you heard this? If you’ve been reading about usability for a while I’m sure you have. Well, it’s not quite accurate. Another guy named Baddeley questioned all this urban legend. Baddeley dug up Miller’s paper and discovered that it wasn’t a research paper, it was a talk that Miller gave at a professional meeting. And it was basically Miller thinking out loud about whether there is some kind of inherent limit to the amount of information that people can process at a time.
Baddeley conducted a long series of studies on human memory and information processing. And what he concluded is that the number is 3 to 4, not 5 to 9.
You can remember about 3-4 things (for about 20 seconds) and then they will disappear from memory unless you repeat them over and over. For example, let’s say you are driving in your car and talking on your cell phone (ok, you shouldn’t be doing that) and someone gives you a number to call. But you don’t have a pen handy, and anyway you are driving. So you try to memorize the number long enough to hang up from one call and dial the new number. What do you do? You repeat the number over and over (putting it back into short term memory each time, which buys you another 20 seconds). The interesting thing about phone numbers is that they are more than 3 or 4 numbers long. So they are hard to remember for more than 20 seconds.
712-569-4532
We also tend to chunk information into groups that have 3-4 items in them. So a phone number in the US is: 712-569-4532. Three chunks, with 3-4 items in each chunk. If you know the area code “by heart” (i.e., it’s stored in long term memory), then you don’t have to remember that, so one whole chunk went away. Phone numbers used to be easier to remember because you mainly called people in your area code, so you had the area code memorized (plus you didn’t even have to “dial” the area code at all). And then if you were calling people in your town each town had the same “exchange” — that is the 569 part of the phone number above. So all you had to remember was the last four numbers. No problem! I know I’m “dating” myself here by telling you how it used to be back in the old days. (I live in a small town in Wisconsin, and people here still give their number out as the last four digits only).
But that’s not all! Researchers working in the field of decision-making tell us that people can’t effectively choose between more than 3 to 4 items at a time.
So, what does all this mean? Can you really only have 4 items on a navigation bar? or 4 tabs on a screen, or 4 items on a product detail page at an e-commerce web site? No, not really. You can have more, as long as you group and chunk.
Here’s an example: At the Upton Tea site they have lots of tabs, but the tabs are not chunked into groups of 3 or 4.
So people will tend to do a partial scan and not even look at or read all the tabs. (I love their teas, by the way.. just wish they would do some work on the layout and emotional aspects of their site, but that’s probably another blog!).
I’ve covered more than 4 items in this blog post, so I’ll stop now! For those of you who like to read research here are some references:
  • Baddeley, A. D. (1986). Working memory. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Baddeley, A. D. (1994). The magical number seven: Still magic after all these years? Psychological Review, 101, 353-356.
  • Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-9


Read more:http://www.businessinsider.com/100-things-you-should-know-about-people-2010-11?op=1#ixzz2nSW5khzt

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Five foods that can sharpen your brain.

Did you know that certain foods can increase your brain power and give you a mental boost?
Here is a list of 5 foods that help you to sharpen your brain.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Physical exercise linked to brain health

Sectegenarians who participated in physical exercise had less brain shrinkage and other signs of aging. KARPATI GABOR Physical activity can keep your brain from deteriorating with age.

Brains have a tendency to shrink as people get older, but regular exercise can help to prevent that from happening, a new study finds. The study, published in the latest issue of Neurology, determined that exercising regularly in old age provides better protection against brain shrinkage than engaging in mental or social activities. "People in their seventies who participated in more physical exercise, including walking several times a week, had less brain shrinkage and other signs of aging in the brain than those who were less physically active," study author Alan J. Gow, with the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, was quoted as saying in a press release. "On the other hand, our study showed no real benefit to participating in mentally and socially stimulating activities on brain size, as seen on MRI scans, over the three-year time frame." Gow and his team looked at medical records of 638 people from Scotland born in 1936. The participants were given MRI scans at 73 years old. Participants gave details about their exercise habits, ranging from moving only in connection with necessary household chores to keeping fit with heavy exercise or participating in competitive sports several times per week.

Special:Optical Illusions for your brain.

They also reported their participation in social and mentally stimulating activities. The research found that after three years, people who participated in more physical activity experienced less brain shrinkage than those who exercised minimally. We all know at this point that exercise is good for us, so this just adds to the long list of benefits. Taking into account prior research, that list includes preventing disease, improving healing, improving quality of life, increasing balance and increasing life expectancy. "Our results show that regularly exercising in old age is potentially important to protecting the brain as we age," Gow said, summing up the latest research. So what are you waiting for? It's time to get off the computer and move!

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Brain Regions Light up

In our daily lives we all have to deal with numbers. And now the brain specialized area in numbers has been revealed. Actually three people were part of an experiment , at Stanford University in California conducted by Josef Parvizi which consisted in the subject's brain activity being recorded. This was achieved by placing electrodes in their brains. The result of the experiment was to show that there is specialisation  for numeracy in the human brain.



source::http://www.newscientist.com

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

10 myths about the brain.

1. Your brain is gray.
2. Listening to Mozart makes you smarter.
3. You get new brain wrinkles when you learn something.
4. You can learn through subliminal messages.
5. The human brain is the biggest brain.
6. Your brain stays active after you get decapitated.
7. Brain damage is always permanent.
8. You can get holes in your brain through drug use.
9. Alcohol kills brain cells.
10. You only use 10% of your brain.

Monday, September 23, 2013

What happened to Einstein's brain?

After Einstein passed away in 1955, at 76 a Princeton University pathologist named Thomas Harvey removed the physicist's brain during an autopsy in hopes of studying it to unlock the secret of Einstein's genius. Harvey said he secured the permission to study the brain after the fact from one of  Einstein's sons with the promise that the findings would be published in medical journals.

After measuring the brain, which was no larger than average, Harvey had a colleague dissect it into 240 pieces, which he preserved and began sending to various neurologists to evaluate. For a long time, there was nothing to publish because there were no findings that Einstein's brains was any different than anyone else's.

It would take 30 years before any findings revealed anything of interest. If 1985, Dr. Marian Diamond found that Einstein had a higher than normal amount of glial cells, which help neurons to work more efficiently.
Diamond's research however, was later discredited in certain circles.

Ten years later, another scientist found that Einstein's brain had a parietal lobe that was 15 percent larger than the average human brain's. It's no coincidence that this part of the brain helps with three-dimensional and spatial reasoning and mathematical abilities, something Einstein knew a thing or two about.
The parietal lobe was also missing the Sylvian fissure, a divider that separates the parietal lobe into to sections. It's theorized that the lack of the fissure allowed his brain cells to communicate faster than the average human's.

Optical Illusion

Optical illusion
Brainsome Optical Illusion


Monday, September 16, 2013

Confusing Optical Illusion

Amazing Optical Illusion


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amazing-optical illusion

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Brain Training: Tips to Improve Your Brain

Brain Training Tips to Improve Your Brain
Brain Training Tips for A Strong Brain

Brain Training Tips : A list of 4 easy training tips for your brain. 



1. Practice simple math every day.
Just doing a couple of sums  and solving problems that have to do with numbers will put your brain in good use. Just leave the calculator for a moment and figure the answers on your own. It will put your brain in good shape for the day.

2. Write instead of type.
In the internet era we are surrounded by computers, smartphones and with all this technology we almost have forgot the art of writing. It is one hundred times better to write down what you have in your mind instead of typing it. Your mind is more focused when you write something down and it is more effective to learn something by writing it.

3. Meditate.
Just having to deal with daily activity  it makes your day tiring and stressful.  It is well known that stress damages the brain.And one good way to get rid of stress is meditation.

4. Sudoku.
It is a simple game that you can find almost everywhere as it has become quite popular. Just solving a sudoku every day it would put your brain in work and it is really fun in my opinion.

This is a short and practical list, but these tips are just the start of it. Many sites, people and important businesses are focusing on brain training as an activity. If you want to learn more about advanced techniques and tips to improve your brain you should visit brainhq, a leader in free brain fitness programs with a lot of brain exercises and memory training stuff

.It is really important to focus on daily brain training because your brain is the most important part of your body. 

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Facts about the human brain.


Fast Brain Facts
  • 3 = the weight of your brain in pounds
  • 4 to 6 = the number of minutes your brain can survive without oxygen before it starts to die
  • 8 to 10 = the number of seconds you have before losing consciousness due to blood loss
  • 10 to 23 = the number of watts of power your grain generates when you’re awake (that’s enough to turn on a light bulb!)
  • 20 = the percentages of oxygen and blood flow going to the brain
  • 100,000 = the number of miles of blood vessels in your brain
  • 1,000 to 10,000 = the number of synapses for each neuron in your brain
  • 100 billion = the number of neurons in your brain
Read more