Grid 16: How Fast Can You Learn, Prioritize, and React?

OK…take 3 minutes and head over to Kongregate and try Grid 16. I don’t care if you’re a ‘gamer’ or not (whatever that means)…head over and see how you do…no instructions…just the admonitions to “Use Your Gamer Logic” and “Do Not Panic”….play it twice…did you get better?

Author: Mark Oehlert, e-Clippings Blog, 4th April 2008

Full article available here.

Brain Teaser Puzzle Games – Happy Neuron

Scientific research shows that to stay fit and at the top of our game, our brains need exercise just like our bodies.

Happy Neuron online brain games are scientifically-developed to stimulate your brain in a challenging and fun way, keeping your mind fit at any age.

Happy Neuron CEO and cognitive psychologist, Dr. Michel Noir, designed these games to specifically target the five major cognitive functions of memory, attention, language, executive functions and visual/spatial. Increasing scientific evidence shows that actively participating in appropriately designed brain fitness workouts can help defer the onset of diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Based on personal progress, Happy Neuron ensures individuals are making the most of their mind workouts. A personalized “virtual coach” prepares personal brain workouts based on player usage and performance. In addition to comparisons to the top 25 percent of players, users will see how they are performing in relation to the average score of their peers. The unique coach feature gauges mental achievement levels and progression based on other players of the same gender, age and education level. Each player is given insight into areas of cognitive strength and weakness and personal progress is charted for each function.

HAPPY NEURON Targets

· Memory – working memory (15 sec.), short-term memory (up to 60 sec.) and long-term memory

· Attention – hones the ability to concentrate and focus on critical information

· Language – exercises speed, strength and comprehension of verbal and written expression

· Executive Functions – strengthens the highly complex functions of logic, strategy, planning, problem solving and deductive reasoning

· Visual and Spatial –processing information in a 3-D world and interpreting visual information

HAPPY NEURON Features

· Offers 32 different online games and more than 1500 hours of game play – including unlimited access to one free game in each cognitive category

· Easy access – players can log in from any computer with internet access

· A “Virtual Coach” to track progress and compare results to other players of similar gender, age and education levels. Games are then recommended to improve an individuals’ area of weakness.

Happy Neuron games are available now at www.happy-neuron.com

Girls ‘more skilled on computers’

Girls are more confident than boys about using a computer, a survey of more than 1,000 children suggests.

Only 6% of girls lacked confidence when using a computer

The research by the Tesco Computers for Schools programme found girls were more likely than boys to be able to perform key tasks, such as creating documents.

It also showed three-quarters of the seven to 16-year-olds polled used a computer every day, with half spending at least two hours a day online.

Meanwhile, the survey suggested parents relied on children for help.

Child advisers

By the age of seven, nearly three quarters (73%) could use search engines and well over half (62%) were able to edit documents, the research found.

It also showed the level of skills among teenagers meant 70% could confidently create a social networking profile, 59% could download music and more than a third (35%) were able to edit and manipulate photography.

Among the girls in both groups only 6% said they lacked confidence using a computer, compared with 10% of boys.

Many parents also lacked confidence, the survey suggested.

More than half (57%) of parents said they relied on their children for advice on how to use their computer and the internet, and only 40% of parents thought they were the most proficient computer user in their household.

Author: BBC News UK, 29th February 2008