Use It or Lose It

### Cold Open

Jason Silva: "We all know what happens when we don't use our muscles- They can atrophy, they can lose mass and eventually they can waste away. Now it might surprise you to find out that your brain is no different. That's why it's so important to exercise your mind as well as your body. One of the things we'd like to help you do is improve your memory. Now I just lifted 256 pounds, and I'd love for you to try and remember and number, because we're going to ask you about it later. And along with that number, if at any point in the episode, you happen to hear someone's name, try your best to remember that too."

## Games

### Game #1: Four Straight Lines

Connect 9 dots arranged in a 3x3 using only four straight lines.

Result: While you may not have gotten it, think outside the box. Only 5% were able to come with a solution on the first try.

So: Your brain has an incredible ability to change with neuroplasticity. You're never stuck at a given mental fitness level. The more you play these kinds of games, the better you will get at creative thinking.

### Game #2: Ideas

A red circle is caught between two rectangles. Think of as many solutions as you can.

Result: While adults can't come up with many ideas, the children seem to fare much better.

Why: The droodle test is a good test of mental flexibility and divergent thinking, the reasons the kids did well was because of the fact they didn't have any rigid categories to categorize the images into. Think like a kid to win.

Now try again.

Result: You probably better.

### Game #3: Break a Sweat for a Pea

Follow the pea hidden under one of three shells.

Result: Most people think it's on the right, but it ended up being on the left.

Try again, looking at the space between the shells.

Result: Once again, you got fooled.

How and Why: While Apollo led you to assume one thing, and took advantage of it to trick you. concentration and distraction are up to different areas of your brain.

### Game #4: The Ark

How many of each kind of animal did God ask Moses to bring on his ark?

Result: Most people say two, which is wrong! Let's rephrase the question.

How many of each kind of animal did Noah bring on his ark.

Result: Moses did not have an ark. A volunteer think it's a trick question.

Why: This game reveals a loophole in your brain which causes problems when you jump to an answer too quickly. By automatically searching the knowledge base and forgetting about who actually was on the ark, since it wasn't the question, they get it wrong.

### Game #5: Lily the Lilly Pad

A Lilly pad doubles in size every day. On what day does she take up half the pond?

Result: You may have guesses 10, which is wrong. But you may have got 19. Which is correct.

Why: If you were able to slow down your brain and concentrate to focus on the specifics. Breaking a sweat can help you generate new ideas.

### Game #6: Mnemonics

Do you remember the three names from before? Forming associations with them can help.

Result: You can remember better.

So: You can make countless connections.

### Game #7: Mnemonics,

Try and remember four names.

Result: You probably forgot at least two.

Now assign names to a jingle and play again.

Result: You did a lot better because jingles increase memory.

### Game #8: Scott's Game

Connect two ropes that can't reach each other using items. Play along with college students.

Result: While we form associations with items over our lifetime, we need to let people think of a paint can in a completely different way, like a pendulum.

So: This problem required your concretion to slow down and mental flexibility to stretch.

### Game #9: We Asked You

Do you remember what we asked you to remember at the start?

Result: If you remembered, good job. But Jason Silva's been trying to burn these numbers into your brain. But did you catch where we hid that number throughout the show?

So: Your brain is a lot like a muscle? You either Use it or lose it.

### Trivia

* This episode, along with Perspective, hold the record for the number of games played in a 20 minute episode(Jason Silva Era).

## List of Experts

* Scott Barry Kaufman
* Apollo Robins(Deception Specialist)