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

Restak, Richard; Kim, Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1594487774 ISBN 13: 9781594487774

Publisher: Riverhead Books, 2010

Synopsis

This is your brain on puzzles...A leading neuroscientist and a noted puzzle designer team up to reveal how solving puzzles improves your brain function.

It's no secret that puzzles are fun to solve. But when Dr. Richard Restak, a respected neuroscientist, discovered new research that proved puzzles could actually help the brain improve itself, he wondered: Could puzzles help arrest mental deterioration? And do different types of puzzles enhance different parts of the brain?

As Restak was investigating the benefits of puzzles, Scott Kim, a world-renowned puzzle developer, also became fascinated by the potential for puzzles to keep the brain nimble. Now these two experts at the top of their fields have collaborated on an engaging and informative book that gives readers the chance to work puzzles while learning how to boost their brain. For example, readers will find out:

?How to solve puzzles for maximum brain improvement.

?The benefits of trial and error on your brain.

?The different kinds of memory you use to solve puzzles.

?The pitfalls that interfere with memory and how to avoid them.

Kim's puzzles and Restak's illuminating prose combine to make The Playful Brain a lively book of popular science that will sharpen anyone's thinking and memory skills.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Restak, M.D., is an award-winning neuroscientist and bestselling author. He lives and practices in Washington, D.C.
Scott Kim is a game designer whose puzzles have appeared in Scientific American and Games magazines, and many computer games. He lives in California.

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: Riverhead Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1594487774
• ISBN 13: 9781594487774
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304