Do musicians have different brains? In the last twenty years, brain imaging studies have revealed that musical training has dramatic effects on the brain. Increases in gray matter (size and number of nerve cells) are seen, for example, in the auditory, motor, and visual spatial areas of the cerebral cortex of musicians. As Dr. Oliver Sacks writes in his book , "Anatomists would be hard put to identify the brain of a visual artist, a writer, or a mathematician - but they could recognize the brain of a professional musician without a moment's hesitation." Perhaps it is not so surprising that brain areas involved in singing and instrument playing, such as auditory and motor cortices, change following extensive musical training, but a recent paper in the journal suggests yet another way that music reshapes the brain. Musicians may not only have better musical memory but they may have enhanced verbal memory as well. In the experiment, all the students listened to and attempted to remember a set of 20 words.
Khan Academy 400 Writing Topics - Prompts and Suggestions for Paragraphs, Essays, and Speeches - Essay Topics If getting started is the hardest part of the writing process, close behind it (and closely related to it) may be the challenge of finding a good topic to write about. Sometimes, of course, an instructor will solve that problem for you by assigning a topic. But at other times you'll have the opportunity to choose a topic on your own. And you really should think of it as an opportunity--a chance to write about something you care about and know well. So relax. To help get you thinking, we've prepared some writing suggestions--more than 400 of them, in fact. We've organized the suggested topics into 11 broad categories, loosely based on some of the common ways of developing paragraphs and essays. Now follow the links to our 400 topic suggestions and see where they take you. Describing People, Places, and Things: 40 Writing TopicsDescriptive writing calls for close attention to details--details of sight and sound, sometimes even of smell, touch, and taste.
How the Brain Stops Time One of the strangest side-effects of intense fear is time dilation, the apparent slowing-down of time. It's a common trope in movies and TV shows, like the memorable scene from The Matrix in which time slows down so dramatically that bullets fired at the hero seem to move at a walking pace. In real life, our perceptions aren't keyed up quite that dramatically, but survivors of life-and-death situations often report that things seem to take longer to happen, objects fall more slowly, and they're capable of complex thoughts in what would normally be the blink of an eye. Now a research team from Israel reports that not only does time slow down, but that it slows down more for some than for others. An intriguing result, and one that raises a more fundamental question: how, exactly, does the brain carry out this remarkable feat? Researcher David Eagleman has tackled his very issue in a very clever way . Was it scary enough to generate a sense of time dilation?
Zen Habits | Simple Productivity Top 10 Strange Phenomena of the Mind Humans The mind is a wonderful thing – there is so much about it which remains a mystery to this day. Science is able to describe strange phenomena, but can not account for their origins. We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time – of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances – of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it! Déjà vu is the experience of being certain that you have experienced or seen a new situation previously – you feel as though the event has already happened or is repeating itself. Déjà vécu (pronounced vay-koo) is what most people are experiencing when they think they are experiencing deja vu. Déjà visité is a less common experience and it involves an uncanny knowledge of a new place. Déjà senti is the phenomenon of having “already felt” something. Jamie Frater
Workplace Psychology Brain Teasers: selection of best adult brain games for attention, memory, planning, visual, logic, corporate, math, and more Here you can enjoy the Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games & Illusions that SharpBrains readers (primarily adults, but some younger minds too) have enjoyed the most. It is always good to learn more about our brains and to exercise them!. Fun experiments on how our brains and minds work 1. 2. 3. 4. Challenge your attention and memory 5. 6. 7. Optical illusions 8. 9. 10. 11. Language and logic puzzles 12. 13. 14. 15. A few visual workouts 16. 17. 18. Teasing your pattern recognition and thinking 19. 20. 21. 22. Brain teasers for job interviews 23. 24. 25.
How to tell in 15 minutes whether someone likes you - by Bridget Webber Bridget Webber's image for: "Body Language that Shows when someone of the Opposite Sex Fancies you" Caption: Location: Image by: Wouldn't it be great to be able to tell within fifteen minutes whether someone likes you or not? The Eyebrow Raise The eyebrow raise is generally reserved for members of the opposite sex who like what they see, and it happens straight away. The Smile Although smiling can be faked, a genuine smile can easily be separated from a false one. A smile that is more of a grimace, or is delivered with lips firmly shut tight and downward turning corners of the lips, is a concerted effort rather than an indication that someone likes you. The Lean. If you are sat with a person who likes you, he or she is likely to lean in toward you as you converse. If you are standing, a person will stand close to you if he or she likes you, and give you full attention. Feet. Eye Contact Touching. When you like someone, you are drawn to touch him or her, even when you try not to! Mirroring.
Brain Games & Brain Training List Of 8 Best Documentary & Infotainment Torrent Trackers And DDL Forums Are there torrent sites or direct download link forums that specialize in documentaries and infotainment content? This is a question we see all too often in our E-mail inbox. The answer is yes, there are quite a few of those sites. Although we have featured them on this blog from time to time, it seems there are still folks out there who have missed out on these invaluable file sharing resources. This article features 8 best torrent sites and DDL forums where you can find premium video content from renowned publishers such as Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Animal Planet, BBC, PBS, HBO, Frontline, Imax, Channel 4 and lots more. Apart from documentaries, these trackers and forums usually index talk shows, Sci Fi and other infotainment content which are not usually found on your average private torrent tracker. Note that most of the forums mentioned in this post require you to sign up and log in before you can see download links, torrents or certain forum categories. Docs4You
How to Read Someone’s Mind | Reading someone's mind Reading someone’s mind through telepathy has a long and legendary history. But if you want to have this ability too, you may have to rethink what mind reading is. Cold Reading is actually a set of techniques developed to give the appearance of reading someone’s mind. Sounds pretty cool, huh? The next step is to profile your subject. You may know next to nothing about the person in front of you, and you don’t need to—they will give you the secrets about themselves without realizing they are, if you ask questions about them in such a way that they appear to be statements. telepathy Most of the time, your subjects will supply more information than necessary from these question-statements. Another technique is to use Barnum statements, which are named after P.T.