Brain Games

I loved Brain Games, until now. It _USE_ to be insightful, informative and educational. Starting with season 8, not so much. NOW the focus is on the GAME and not so much on the BRAIN. Oh, there is still SOME educational value to it, IF you pay close attention, but for the most part it is now all just another game show. I hope the go back to the old format.

The first set of shows with host Silva are vastly superior to those with later host Key. The tone is more cerebral in the earlier shows, whereas the later ones are done with more of a game show attitude with shrieking audiences, etc. Interesting stories about the brain and perception.

Always a good idea to get people thinking more. At a time when having a brain isn't highly valued, this show gets you thinking. It's fun and fast paced. The topics are primarily visual, but so are our brains.

The brief length of episodes is a good idea for two reasons- 1. You don't burn out. and 2. so you have some chance of retaining the helpful tips given.

Only one complaint and that's the gratuitous TnA. It's subtle, but throughout every episode you get little flashes of breasts, buns, and cute girls sprinkled throughout. It's sinking a little low for Nat Geographic to pander like that. It detracts from the quality. Is that what the producer's felt was necessary to hold people's attention? I only mention it because so many advertisements are already targeting people with sex. It could even be a topic for Brain Games.

This show is an examination of how our brains work, with special emphasis on the cracks in what is its otherwise deeply impressive capabilities. The show is educational, but mostly it's fun to watch because you get to see how your own brain makes assumptions and mistakes under certain circumstances. These range from the fun, optical illusion types of errors to the downright spooky mistakes of reading errors or overconfidence in how common everyday technology works.

To illustrate with an example from the show, without cheating and going online or looking at a physical example, draw a picture of a bicycle with wheels and a frame, then look at a real picture and compare your picture to reality. Even though the mechanism is simple and easily understood, there is a very decent chance that your drawing contains significant errors. This is because our brains don't like to feel that we don't understand the world we live in, so we "hand wave" away the concept of a bicycle, telling ourselves that we understand the concept even if we really don't. And as the show points out with numerous examples, this isn't some isolated or rare example, but is in fact much closer to the norm than we would be comfortable admitting.

I don't know that I would agree with another reviewer that these types of examples should be used to screen job candidates because I think that the point of these examples is that whether or not you pass one particular test, you are almost certain to fail at least some of the tests. The problem isn't smart vs stupid or focused vs lazy, the problem is that our brains are imperfect computing devices. In fact, one could argue that by deciding that these errors don't apply to you by virtue of your intelligence or diligence you are making exactly the type of critical thinking error you are claiming to have overcome.

Observing these cracks in our understanding argues for an extra layer of caution and occasionally pausing to examine our assumptions when making key decisions. Did I really understand the question a coworker asked me or did I make a quick assumption and leap to an incorrect conclusion? Is it really safe for me to answer this one quick phone call while driving or will the conversation require too much attention to do it safely?

Not all of the topics on the show are equally applicable to our day to day lives, and the the show does occasionally rehash slight variations of themes it has previously covered, but all in all I think it's really fascinating to watch, and an excellent show in general to watch with your kids or significant other because there are plenty of opportunities for interactive group brain teasers or exercises to do with others.

By the way, did you catch the extra word in the previous paragraph? Yes? Good on you! Now catch a few episodes and see how well you do on the other tests...

Perhaps one of the best documentary series ever created for TV about human psychology / behavior and certainly one of Nat Geo's best prodution series, ever.