When Brain Damage Helps

Posted on Tuesday 20 November 2007

It seems I may have frontal brain damage. Before I explain why, try the following. In the following picture, can you move a single matchstick to form a valid mathematical equation? No sticks can be discarded, an isolated slanted stick cannot be interpreted as I (one), and a V (five) symbol must always be composed of two slanted sticks.

matchstick2a

And now this one:

matchstick1a

The first one took me about 3 seconds to solve – it’s pretty friggin obvious I think. The second one had me guessing for a little longer, but after about 10 seconds I had the solution. Well, according to this article, healthy adults are frequently outperformed on the second test by people with frontal brain damage. Huh. Who would’ve thunk it.


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