By Pascale Michelon, Ph. D
You have seen and maybe tried that exercise or game in the Sunday paper many times: find 5 differences between the two images.
You may like it or not. You may think it is only for kids. But it is a GREAT brain exercise!
Let’s see what cognitive processes and which brain areas are involved in this exercise:
- You have to identify the objects that you see: this involves your occipital lobes 
(in red, below)
- You have to analyzed the spatial relationships between the objects that you see: this involves your occipital and parietal (in green) lobes
- You have to remember what you see in one picture and compare it to what you see in the other picture, that is you have to use your short-term memory: this involves your frontal (in blue) and parietal lobes
- You have to mark down the locations where you see a difference: this involves mostly your frontal lobes (for the movement)
Did you realize that so much was going on in your brain during that seemingly simple exercise?
I bet not! So… why not give it a try??
Can you find 5 differences between the two pictures below?
Answers:
- One of the characters on the white sign (top right)
- Sign on the grey wall (bottom left)
-Tail of the big fish on the left side of the building
- Posting on the sign leaning on the building on the right side of the building
- One of the small wooden characters on the left side of the building, under the big fish
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This article was written by Pascale Michelon, Ph. D., for SharpBrains.com. Copyright 2008. Dr. Michelon has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and has worked as a Research Scientist at Washington University in Saint Louis, in the Psychology Department. She conducted several research projects to understand how the brain makes use of visual information and memorizes facts. She is now an Adjunct Faculty at Washington University, and teaches Memory Workshops in numerous retirement communities in the St Louis area. |