The Playful Brain: The Surprising Science of How Puzzles Improve Your Mind - Softcover

Restak, Richard; Kim, Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1594485453 ISBN 13: 9781594485459

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2011

Synopsis

This is your brain on puzzles.

Everyone knows that puzzles can improve your brain function. Now a leading neurosurgeon and a noted puzzle designer team up to reveal the fascinating science behind it. Packed with illuminating insights and dozens of puzzles, this is both a lively book of popular science and an engaging set of exercises in developing a wide array of thinking and memory skills.

About this title

About the Author

Richard M. Restak, M.D., is a neurologist, neuropsychiatrist, and Clinical Professor of Neurology affiliated with the George Washington University Medical Center. He is the author of the bestselling The Brain--a companion to the PBS series of the same name--as well as The Mind, The Brain Has a Mind of Its Own, and The Brain: The Last Frontier. He lives in Washington, D.C..

From Publishers Weekly

Idle mental diversions are good for you, according to this delightful neurology primer–cum–brain teaser compendium. Neuroscientist Restak (Think Smart) begins with an engaging introduction to the brain's features and flubs, from quirks in the visual system that yield optical illusions to the inescapable influence emotions exert over mental performance (dart throwers, we learn, find it difficult to hit a bull's-eye on a child's photo). Divided into three sections--Memory, Perception, and Cognition--Restak sets the stage while former Discover magazine puzzle master Kim weighs in with puzzles to exercise the gray matter muscles. While memory maneuvers (memorize pi out to 32 digits?) are often more chore than game, the majority explore a broad and improbable array of mental faculties in an ingenious fashion. Classics like sudoku get a twist, and puzzles challenge visual acuity (find details in complex pictures), auditory imagination (match the sound to the Foley artist's contrivance), and physical coordination (mirror-writing); while at the cerebral end there are exercises in making brilliant conceptual leaps with matchsticks. The result is a fun and illuminating pop science frolic that will make readers feel like, if not exactly think like, Einstein. Illus. (Jan.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1594485453
• ISBN 13: 9781594485459
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304