Mentalrobics®
Stay mentally fit with these daily brain exercises. You will learn how to flex your mind, improve your creativity and boost your memory. Pick your favorite exercises from our daily suggestions and repeat them as desired to enhance your mental capacity. Try to do some Mentalrobics every single day!
Mentalrobics Articles
Daily exercises and tips for improving memory, creativity, vocabulary and stress management.
Flash Cards
When you are trying to memorize something, flash cards can be a very effective way to improve your memory.
Vocab Builder
This vocabulary test is loaded with over 3000 of the most common words found on the SAT and GRE standardized tests.
Mentalrobics Articles
Word of the Day : Prolix
pro-lix
adj :: Marked by or using an excess of words.
"The editor got frustrated with the prolix manuscript and skipped several hundred pages."
Groupthink
"Groupthink" is a term used to describe a process whereby a group can make bad decisions even though each individual in the group may realize that the result is going to be bad.
People have a strong need to feel accepted in a group. Whenever an individual participates in a group, it causes the other participants to react in some way. People want to be liked, so they tend to participate in a way that gains them acceptance. One way to gain acceptance is to be very agreeable and not rock the boat. When a bad or bland idea is introduced, very few people may challenge it. If nobody proposes a better idea, groupthink can result.
Proposing a creative idea that differs from the group exposes the person and puts them in a vulnerable position. Nobody wants to fail in front of their peers or superiors. As a result, wild ideas are frequently self-censored or toned down to a level that is easily assimilated by the group. Unless there is a process that encourages wild ideas, they will seldom be introduced and groupthink can result.
Groupthink can also occur if an idea comes from higher up in the corporate ladder. Nobody wants to disagree with their boss, even if they know that the boss's idea will fail.
Brainstorming is a process that encourages wild ideas. This is one way to avoid groupthink.
Eidetic Imagery
Eidetic imagery is the ability to retain an accurate visual image of a complex scene or pattern shortly after looking at it. The scene can then be described in detail for a short time. Eidetic imagery is a trait possessed by about 5% of children. The ability to form eidetic images is very rare past adolescence.
To produce an eidetic image, a person must study a scene for some time and must actively concentrate on this scene to retain it in memory. These images fade quickly when the attention is diverted to something else. Naming or identifying parts of the scene tend to interrupt the ability to form an eidetic image. Thus it is very difficult to form an eidetic memory of text.
Sometimes eidetic imagery is called photographic memory. This term is not exactly accurate because this type of memory is not formed like a photograph; eidetic images can be fragmentary and are not necessarily more accurate than normal memories. Additionally, photographic memory is a learned skill rather than a trait you are born with. For example, some people demonstrate impressive memory abilities, with feats like memorizing the number pi out to thousands of digits. Sometimes these people are described as having photographic memories. In reality, photographic memory is simply the successful application of effective memory techniques. In that respect, photographic memory is a learned skill that you can eventually acquire.
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