Brain Games (National Geographic)

Last updated
Brain Games
Presented by
Country of originUnited States
Production
Running time33 minutes (approx.)
Release
Original network National Geographic Channel
Original releaseOctober 9, 2011 (2011-10-09) –
March 20, 2016 (2016-03-20)
External links
Website

Brain Games is a popular science television series that explores cognitive science by focusing on illusions, psychological experiments, and counterintuitive thinking. Neil Patrick Harris was the unseen narrator in the first season, replaced by Jason Silva for the remainder of the series as its host and presenter; in addition, sleight-of-hand artist Apollo Robbins has been a frequent consultant and illusionist guest on the show. The show is interactive, encouraging television viewers, often along with a handful of live volunteers, to engage in visual, auditory, and other cognitive experiments, or "brain games", that emphasize the main points presented in each episode. The series debuted on the National Geographic Channel in 2011 as a special. [1] Its return as an original series in 2013 set a record for the highest premiere rating for any National Geographic Channel original series with 1.5 million viewers. [2] Season 7 aired in 2016. National Geographic announced that the show would return as a 2-hour live event in the fall of 2018. [3] As of December 2018, no live event ever took place.

Popular science is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad-ranging. It may be written by professional science journalists or by scientists themselves. It is presented in many forms, including books, film and television documentaries, magazine articles, and web pages.

Cognitive science interdisciplinary scientific study of the mind and its processes

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition. Cognitive scientists study intelligence and behavior, with a focus on how nervous systems represent, process, and transform information. Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include language, perception, memory, attention, reasoning, and emotion; to understand these faculties, cognitive scientists borrow from fields such as linguistics, psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology. The typical analysis of cognitive science spans many levels of organization, from learning and decision to logic and planning; from neural circuitry to modular brain organization. The fundamental concept of cognitive science is that "thinking can best be understood in terms of representational structures in the mind and computational procedures that operate on those structures."

Illusion Distortion of the perception of reality

An illusion is a distortion of the senses, which can reveal how the human brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Though illusions distort our perception of reality, they are generally shared by most people.

Contents

The series is deemed acceptable for use toward E/I credits, and Litton Entertainment added repurposed reruns of the show to its One Magnificent Morning block in fall 2017. [4]

Litton Entertainment American television production company

Litton Entertainment is an American media and production company based in Charleston, South Carolina as an autonomous division of the Hearst Television subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation, with four additional offices in Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Burbank, California. Many of Litton's programs comply with federally mandated educational and informational requirements.

One Magnificent Morning television series

One Magnificent Morning (OMM) is an American programming block that is programmed by Litton Entertainment and debuted on October 4, 2014 as the successor to the animation block Vortexx. It airs on Saturday mornings on the owned-and-operated stations and affiliates of The CW, the block features live-action documentary and lifestyle series aimed at preteens and teenagers between the ages of 10 and 16, the same style of programming that Litton provides for competing blocks seen on ABC, CBS, and NBC. All of the programs in the three-hour block are designed to meet federally mandated educational programming guidelines.

On May 14, 2019, it was announced that a revival of this series, hosted by Keegan-Michael Key, will premiere on December 1, 2019. [5]

Keegan-Michael Key American actor

Keegan-Michael Key is an American actor, comedian, writer and producer. Key co-created and starred in Comedy Central's sketch series Key & Peele (2012–2015) and co-starred in USA Network's Playing House (2014–2017). He spent six seasons as a cast member on Mad TV (2004–2009) and has made guest appearances on the U.S. version of Whose Line is it Anyway? on The CW. He also appeared in the first season of the FX series Fargo in 2014 and had a recurring role on Parks and Recreation from 2013–2015. He hosted the U.S. version of The Planet's Funniest Animals on Animal Planet from 2005 until the series' end in 2008.

Cast

Main

Neil Patrick Harris American actor and host

Neil Patrick Harris is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, magician, and singer. He is known primarily for his comedy roles on television and his dramatic and musical stage roles. On television, he is known for playing the title character on Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989–1993), Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother, and Count Olaf in A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017–2019).

Jason Silva Venezuelan television personality

Jason Luis Silva is a Venezuelan American television personality, filmmaker, futurist, philosopher, and public speaker. He is known for hosting National Geographic documentaries: Brain Games and Origins. His goal is to use technology to excite people about philosophy and science. The Atlantic describes Silva as "A Timothy Leary of the Viral Video Age". Silva, a former presenter on Current TV, lectures internationally on such topics as creativity, spirituality, technology and humanity, writes and produces short films, and co-hosts National Geographic's Brain Games.

Television presenter person who introduces or hosts television programs

A presenter is a person who introduces or hosts television programs. Nowadays, it is common for personalities in other fields to take on this role, but some people have made their name solely within the field of presenting, particularly within children's television series, to become television personalities.

American University private liberal arts and research-based university in Washington, D.C.

The American University is a private research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres at the former site of Fort Gaines on Ward Circle, in the Spring Valley neighborhood in the northwest of the District. AU was chartered by an Act of Congress in 1893 at the urging of Methodist bishop John Fletcher Hurst, who sought to create an institution that would promote public service, internationalism, and pragmatic idealism. AU broke ground in 1902, opened in 1914, and admitted its first undergraduates in 1925. Although affiliated with the United Methodist Church, religious affiliation is not a criterion for admission.

Amy Bastian American neuroscientist

Amy Jo Bastian is an American neuroscientist, who has made important contributions to the neuroscience of sensorimotor control. From 2011 she has been a Professor of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. In 2015 Bastian was appointed Chief Science Officer at the Kennedy Krieger Institute

Princeton University University in Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The institution moved to Newark in 1747, then to the current site nine years later, and renamed itself Princeton University in 1896.

Episode list

Season 1 (2011)

Season 1 consists of three one-hour pilot episodes.

No. Title [6]

Original air date

1"Watch This!"October 9, 2011 (2011-10-09)
Explore optical illusions and how our brain can mislead us.
2"Pay Attention!"October 9, 2011 (2011-10-09)
David Copperfield explores how we use attention throughout our everyday life.
3"Remember This!"October 9, 2011 (2011-10-09)
Former detective Greg Walsh exposes memory weakness in a staged scenario where a guy's camera is stolen and the eyewitnesses provide conflicting accounts of what happened.

Season 2 (2013)

No. Title [7]

Original air date

1"Focus Pocus"April 22, 2013 (2013-04-22)
Highlights our misconception that your brain is able to focus on everything important at any given time. Games and scenarios involving football and cheerleaders, and a dinner scenario.
2"It's About Time"April 22, 2013 (2013-04-22)
Topics on how the brain tries to measure time to speed up or slow down depending on the situation. Games and scenarios involving bullriders, counting intervals, information overload, audio and visual syncing, and a bar trick on snatching money.
3"Motion Commotion"April 29, 2013 (2013-04-29)
Explore how your brain uses and reacts to motion in order to make decisions. Games and scenarios where images appear to be moving a certain way when they are not, sleight-of-hand trick with Apollo Robbins, the effect of sound on perception, and when focusing on one object causes ones in the periphery to move differently.
4"Don't Be Afraid"April 29, 2013 (2013-04-29)
How fear plays into your perceptions on things. Games and scenarios involving trying to remember things when there is fear involved, how sound effects and music can make a scene look scary. Silva plays a Russian-roulette type of game where he experiences the powers of dread. Trying to remember objects in a haunted house. Volunteers go into a dark room and encounter creepy things.
5"Power of Persuasion"May 6, 2013 (2013-05-06)
How marketers and advertisers manipulate your brain to persuade you. Games and scenarios involving priming, a demonstration involving smashing crates, a guy impersonates a reporter, a game where the viewer chooses the winners of an election based solely on their headshots, and an interview scenario about first impressions.
6"What You Don't Know"May 13, 2013 (2013-05-13)
Topics on how the brain tricks you into thinking you know more than you do. Silva asks a class to try to figure out how a zipper works, and to draw a bicycle, later showing what those designs would actually look like. A series of questions where the viewer is asked to give a range for their answer and how confident they would be in it. How the brain discards information when focusing on a certain task or assumes words were there when they were not.
7"Battle of the Sexes"May 20, 2013 (2013-05-20)
Men and women compete in a series of tasks to see whether their gender makes a difference. Games involving color swatches, putting together pieces to make a shape, following directions on a list, matching faces of people, and packing a trunk.
8"Seeing is Believing"May 27, 2013 (2013-05-27)
Illusions highlight how your visual perceptions can be surprisingly off. Scenarios and games involving perspective such as the cube of fire, a distorted chair, the Ames room, and a dining table. Basketball players put on goggles that distort their perspective. Puzzles involving the spinning ballerina, Einstein's mask, and how resizing a picture can make it look like two different people. Using anamorphic art to place a cube in a room.
9"You Decide"June 3, 2013 (2013-06-03)
The subject of decisions. A demonstration of the paradox of choice in choosing ice cream. A game where the person chooses one of two people, but ends up talking about the other. Trick questions that can be answered if the person slows down to think about it. A marketing trick where placing an intermediate item in a comparison can trick the person into favoring a certain choice. An experiment where folks end up finding differences among identical items.
10"Use it or Lose it"June 10, 2013 (2013-06-10)
The brain can be exercised like muscle. Games and puzzles such as connecting nine dots with three lines, using thinking like a child to come up with creative ideas, another sleight-of-hand trick with Robbins, trick questions, using mnemonics to remember people's names, and solving a puzzle using ordinary items in a way they were not originally designed.
11"Illusion Confusion"June 17, 2013 (2013-06-17)
Optical illusions highlight how powerful our minds can really be.
12"Liar, Liar"June 24, 2013 (2013-06-24)
Learn how to determine if someone is lying.

Season 3 (2014)

No. Title [8] Original air date
1"In Living Color"January 6, 2014 (2014-01-06)
How can things as simple as color fool you?
2"Laws of Attraction"January 13, 2014 (2014-01-13)
It shows how attractions come down to basic math.
3"Trust Me"January 20, 2014 (2014-01-20)
It shows how can you find out who to trust.
4"Battle of the Ages"November 11, 2013 (2013-11-11)
The mental differences between kids, teens, and adults.
5"Stress Test"January 27, 2014 (2014-01-27)
Explains how much stress you can handle before you "collapse" under pressure.
6"What's Going On?"February 3, 2014 (2014-02-03)
How things aren't like you think they are.
7"Retrain your Brain"February 24, 2014 (2014-02-24)
Explains how to make your brain healthier.
8"Mind your Body"March 3, 2014 (2014-03-03)
Who wins in your life, your body or your brain?
9"In It To Win It"March 10, 2014 (2014-03-10)
How does competition affect your brain?
10"Follow The Leader"March 17, 2014 (2014-03-17)
Everyone likes to think they're unique, but like it or not, much of your behavior is influenced by copying other people. We're going to mess with your mind as we put you through a series of games and experiments designed to show you why a yawn is so contagious, how imitation leads to flattery and how to discover whether your brain is a born leader ' or a born follower.

Season 4 (2014)

No. Title [9] Original air date
1"Compassion"July 14, 2014 (2014-07-14)
Discover if you're compassionate or psychopathic in a series of games and experiments.
2"Addiction"July 14, 2014 (2014-07-14)
Discover how addiction affects your brain, and whether addictions are necessary.
3"Language"July 21, 2014 (2014-07-21)
Discover how your brain handles language, and why words mean what they do.
4"Risk"July 21, 2014 (2014-07-21)
Are you risk-taking or cautious? Put your betting skills to the test.
5"Battle of the Sexes 2"July 28, 2014 (2014-07-28)
It's "male vs. female" again with more games and experiments.
6"Superstitions"July 28, 2014 (2014-07-28)
Discover how your brain is designed to believe in various superstitions.
7"Food"August 4, 2014 (2014-08-04)
Find out that restaurants trick you, and how the looks of food can turn you away.
8"Anger"August 11, 2014 (2014-08-11)
Find out what happens in your brain that causes you to get angry.
9"Patterns"August 18, 2014 (2014-08-18)
Find out how many patterns are in the world, and the pros and cons of patterns.
10"Intuition"August 25, 2014 (2014-08-25)
What happens when you make "on-the-fly" decisions in life? That's the key of intuition.

Season 5 (2015)

No. Title [10] Original air date U.S. viewers
1"Common Sense"January 19, 2015 (2015-01-19)686,000 [11]
2"Left vs. Right"January 19, 2015 (2015-01-19)714,000 [11]
3"Morality"January 26, 2015 (2015-01-26)773,000 [12]
4"Money"February 2, 2015 (2015-02-02)743,000 [13]
5"Paranormal"February 9, 2015 (2015-02-09)711,000 [14]
6"Memory"February 16, 2015 (2015-02-16)699,000 [15]
7"Misconceptions"February 23, 2015 (2015-02-23)702,000 [16]
8"Peer Pressure"March 2, 2015 (2015-03-02)575,000 [17]
9"Logic"March 9, 2015 (2015-03-09)680,000 [18]
10"Faces"March 16, 2015 (2015-03-16)685,000 [17]

Season 6 (2015)

No. Title [19] Original air date U.S. viewers
1"Positive Thinking"June 28, 2015 (2015-06-28) [20] 524,000 [21]
Do you think half-full or half-empty? Watch to learn how to avoid negative thoughts.
2"Scams"June 28, 2015 (2015-06-28) [20] 489,000 [21]
Watch how easily your brain falls for various scams.
3"Sleep"June 28, 2015 (2015-06-28) [20] 476,000 [21]
How does 36 hours without sleep affect your brain? Learn the dangers of sleep deprivation.
4"Perspective"June 28, 2015 (2015-06-28) [20] 481,000 [21]
Learn how a simple shift in perspective can change your entire view of the world.
5"Animal vs Human"June 29, 2015 (2015-06-29) [20] 400,000 [22]
Can a parakeet beat a competitive eater? Watch how humans fare against animals.
6"Imagination"June 29, 2015 (2015-06-29) [20] 475,000 [22]
Learn how important your imagination is to your everyday life.

Season 7 (2016)

Special episodes

No. Title [23] Original air date U.S. viewers
1"Meet The Brain"February 14, 2016N/A
Take a tour and see how the city of London is just like your brain in a series of games.
2"The God Brain"February 21, 2016N/A
Jason travels the world to see how the belief in God may be implanted into our brains.
3"Brains Behaving Badly"February 28, 2016N/A
Jason heads to New Orleans to see how the seven deadly sins affect your brain.
4"Life Of The Brain"March 6, 2016N/A
5"Super Senses"March 13, 2016N/A
6"The Survivor Brain"March 20, 2016N/A
No. Title [24] Original air date U.S. viewers
–"Mind vs. Body"September 5, 2014 (2014-09-05)N/A
Compilation
–"Brain Trust"September 5, 2014 (2014-09-05)N/A
Compilation
–"Fair Game"January 2, 2015 (2015-01-02)N/A
Compilation
–"Try this at home"October 26, 2015 (2015-10-26)N/A
Compilation

Awards

YearAwardCategoryResultRef.
2013 Primetime Emmy Award Outstanding Informational Series or Special Nominated
[25]
2015 Imagen Foundation Awards Best Variety or Reality ShowNominated
[26]

Related Research Articles

<i>Penn & Teller: Fool Us</i> television series

Penn & Teller: Fool Us is a magic competition television program in which magicians perform tricks in front of American magician-comedian duo Penn & Teller. Its first two seasons were hosted by Jonathan Ross, and the third season onwards by Alyson Hannigan. Fool Us was filmed at Fountain Studios in London, England and the Penn & Teller Theater in Las Vegas. After each performance, if Penn & Teller cannot figure out how a trick was done, the magician(s) who performed it win a five-star trip to Las Vegas to perform as the opening act in Penn & Teller's show, also at the Rio Hotel & Casino.

<i>Black Ink Crew</i> television series

Black Ink Crew is an American reality television series that airs on VH1 and debuted on January 7, 2013. It chronicles the daily operations and staff drama at an African American-owned and operated tattoo shop in Harlem, New York.

<i>Gravity Falls</i> (season 2) Final season of television series

The second and final season of the American animated television series Gravity Falls began on August 1, 2014 on Disney Channel and on August 4, 2014 on Disney XD, and ended on February 15, 2016.

Eye Candy is an American thriller television series which premiered on MTV on January 12, 2015. The series was developed by Christian Taylor, and is based on the novel of the same name by R. L. Stine. Eye Candy stars Victoria Justice as Lindy Sampson, a tech genius who goes on the hunt for a serial killer in New York while searching for her lost sister Sara. On February 11, 2014, Eye Candy was picked up for a 10 episode first season. Justice revealed on April 18, 2015, that the series had been cancelled.

<i>Regular Show</i> (season 7) season of television series

The seventh season of the American animated comedy television series Regular Show, created by J. G. Quintel, originally aired on Cartoon Network in the United States. Quintel originally created the series' pilot using characters from his comedy shorts for the cancelled anthology series The Cartoonstitute. He developed Regular Show from his own experiences in college, while several of its main characters originated from his animated shorts The Naïve Man from Lolliland and 2 in the AM PM. He himself voices one of the main characters in the show, "Mordecai", a blue jay. The series was renewed for a seventh season at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con International on July 25, 2014. The previous season contained 31 episodes in order to accommodate for the film and this season will contain the normal 40 episodes from the previous seasons. However, it was technically 39 episodes because the last episode of the season was used for the five shorts which were broadcast on Cartoon Network in March and April 2016. Therefore, the five shorts took up one production code for the 40 episodes.

<i>StarTalk</i> (American talk show) 2015 TV series

StarTalk is an American talk show hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson that airs weekly on National Geographic. StarTalk is a spin-off of the podcast of the same name, in which Tyson discusses scientific topics through one-on-one interviews and panel discussions. Space.com called it the "first-ever science-themed late-night talk show." The series premiered on April 20, 2015.

Yukon River Run is an American reality television series, produced by Gurney Productions for the National Geographic Channel. The series follows three crews travelling along the Yukon River in Alaska attempting to sell wood and other essential supplies to remote villages along the river, while competing against the other crews to maximise profit.

<i>Devious Maids</i> (season 4) season of television series

The fourth and final season of the American television comedy-drama series Devious Maids was ordered on September 24, 2015. Filming began January 14, 2016 with episode titles being cleaning puns. It consisted of 10 episodes, aired from June 6 through August 8, 2016.

Follow the Rules is an American reality television series starring Ja Rule. The series premiered on October 26, 2015, on MTV.

<i>SpongeBob SquarePants</i> (season 11) season of television series

The eleventh season of the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, created by former marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg, began airing on Nickelodeon in the United States on June 24, 2017, beginning with the episode "Spot Returns"/"The Check-Up". The series chronicles the exploits and adventures of the title character and his various friends in the fictional underwater city of Bikini Bottom. The season was executive produced by series creator Hillenburg. The showrunners for this season were Marc Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller, who are also the supervising producers.

<i>Final Space</i> American adult animated science fiction television series

Final Space is an American animated space opera dramedy television series created by Olan Rogers for TBS and Cartoon Network's late night programming block Adult Swim. The series involves an astronaut named Gary Goodspeed and his alien friend, Mooncake, and focuses on their intergalactic adventures as they try to solve the mystery of the titular "Final Space".

This is a list of episodes for Fast N' Loud Season 10.

References

  1. ↑ "Brain Games - About". Nat Geo. 2013. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  2. ↑ O'Connell, Michael (April 23, 2013). "TV Ratings: 'Brain Games' Premiere Sets Nat Geo Record". hollywoodreporter.com. Archived from the original on March 21, 2015. Retrieved March 21, 2015.
  3. ↑ "Brain Games Renewed For Season 8 As Live Event!". 18 April 2018.
  4. ↑ "The CW Announces Fall 2017 'One Magnificent Morning' Saturday Morning Line-Up". TV News Desk. Broadway World. September 13, 2017. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
  5. ↑ "National Geographic Announces Keegan-Michael Key as Host of "Brain Games"". The Futon Critic . May 14, 2019.
  6. ↑ "Brain Games Season 1 Episodes", TVGuide . Retrieved March 12, 2014.
  7. ↑ "Brain Games Season 2 Episodes", TVGuide . Retrieved March 12, 2014.
  8. ↑ "Brain Games Season 3 Episodes", TVGuide . Retrieved March 12, 2014.
  9. ↑ "Brain Games Season 4 Episodes", National Geographic . Retrieved March 13, 2016.
  10. ↑ "Brain Games Season 5 Episodes", TVGuide . Retrieved January 12, 2015.
  11. 1 2 "SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 25 Monday Cable Originals: 1.19.2015 (Updated)" . Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  12. ↑ "SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 25 Monday Cable Originals: 1.26.2015 (Updated)" . Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  13. ↑ "SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 25 Monday Cable Originals: 2.2.2015 (Updated)" . Retrieved 20 March 2015.
  14. ↑ "SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 25 Monday Cable Originals: 2.9.2015 (Updated)" . Retrieved 20 March 2015.
  15. ↑ "SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 25 Monday Cable Originals: 2.16.2015 (Updated)" . Retrieved 20 March 2015.
  16. ↑ "SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 25 Monday Cable Originals: 2.23.2015 (Updated)" . Retrieved 20 March 2015.
  17. 1 2 "SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 25 Monday Cable Originals: 3.2.2015 (Updated)" . Retrieved 20 March 2015.
  18. ↑ "SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 25 Monday Cable Originals: 3.9.2015 (Updated)" . Retrieved 20 March 2015.
  19. ↑ "Brain Games Season 6 Episodes", National Geographic . Retrieved March 13, 2016.
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "TV Guide Daily Listings" . Retrieved 19 June 2015.
  21. 1 2 3 4 "SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 25 Sunday Cable Originals: 6.28.2015" . Retrieved 19 July 2015.
  22. 1 2 "SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 25 Monday Cable Originals: 6.29.2015" . Retrieved 19 July 2015.
  23. ↑ "Brain Games Season 7 Episodes", National Geographic . Retrieved March 13, 2016.
  24. ↑ "Brain Games Special Episodes", National Geographic . Retrieved March 13, 2016.
  25. ↑ "Brain Games". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences . Retrieved July 25, 2014.
  26. ↑ "2015 Imagen Awards Winners, Honorees & Nominees". The Imagen Foundation . Retrieved July 25, 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.