User Reviews

This programme clarifies how our brains, as well as other features of our body, work and react in different ways. It also shows it in an interesting and comedic way, so it's fun to learn. The preeminent topics the show tells us about are stress, addiction, competition, food, trust and language. Brain games has good humour and is a comedy-based programme.

The humour in this programme is mainly childish. The host of the show for seasons 2-7 is a man called John Silva. The preceding presenter for season 1 was Neil Patrick Harris. The viewers of the show can learn the advantages of the real world and real experiences. This specifies how to revamp your memory, get a prominent night sleep and make more money.

The programme is an Emmy-nominated series as well, which by watching the programme you can see why. The main genres in this programme are Family and Comedy. On the comedy sides of things they had done it perfectly as it was hilarious for the whole 30 minutes. There were only some elements of the show which were not funny, but they were the more enlightening parts. The debut of this show was in 2011 on the National Geographic channel.

The programme is available on Netflix, Youtube and from the Google Play store. To view this on Youtube it would cost £1.99 which also applies to buying and then watching it from the Google Play store. This show met my expectations as I had found programmes like these interesting and putting it into a series really made me watch it. I would immensely recommend watching this programme to other people as it's comedic and you can learn a lot from watching it.

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...

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.

This show should be used by every HR department. My biggest problems with new employees can be revealed through some of these shows. Ex not noticing double words in common sayings or over compensating knowledge. If I could screen new hires on just these two skills it would save thousands of dollars. What I have always blamed on reading comprehension, may be the way people's brains work In my area of responsibility millions of dollars can be decided on detailed review of contract language, which can sometimes be compared to an illusionists slight of hand. It's very difficult these days to find candidates that can focus quickly on the text at hand. It's like no one has the focus necessary to perform this task. I have asked new employees to review hard copy text to find a specific string of text and after hours they cannot. This is the product of online education which renders old logical thought useless.

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.

The fascination of magic, if you are of kindergarten age.

Brain Games is a documentary series about the human brain and how it works. The episode, "Battle of the Sexes" was a compilation of experiments and games testing the biological differences in the female and male brains. Because my project is based off of the physical and behavioral differences among men and women and how those differences affect the law, this episode of Brain Games directly affects my civil rights question. My own experiments I have conducted are inspired directly from this show, and they will help prove or disprove stereotypical differences in the two genders. "Battle of the Sexes" covers three major differences in men and women: the eye for detail, competitive drive, and spatial reasoning.

The first experiment was a picture of seven squares of the color red. Both men and women were asked how many different shades of red they could see; The majority of guys only saw three to five shades of red, whereas the majority of women could see six or all seven almost immediately. Women's brains are hardwired to see more shades on the red orange spectrum, and they are typically more likely to pay attention to detail. One theory behind this biological difference is that millions of years ago, it was an advantage for women to see the differences in shades of red to find nutritious berries while scavenging. The female brain is proved throughout this experiment and many others to be better at noticing detail in color and other things than the male brain. This means that the stereotype of women noticing things better and having a sharper eye for detail is true. The eye-for-detail stereotype was proved again in the second experiment through a game tested on both men and women. A list of ten random challenging tasks titled "Read All Directions Carefully" is placed in front of a man and a woman in separate rooms as they compete to finish all tasks the fastest. The tasks include applying lipstick, doing jumping jacks, spinning in circles, etc. At the end of the list, it says "ignore all of these challenges and sign your name on the bottom of this page." On this show, 75% of the women tested simply signed their names on the bottom, winning the game, whereas only 20% of men signed and won.

Although women may be better at noticing detail, men are proved to have the upper hand in spatial reasoning in this episode of Brain Games. In the first spatial reasoning experiment, One shape, a parallelogram, is shown at the top of a poster and four groups of shapes are shown at the bottom. The task is to figure out which group of shapes makes up the parallelogram shown at the top. Most guys got the right answer more than girls did, proving they have a better sense of spatial reasoning. This was proved once again in the second spatial reasoning test when two different kinds of directions were read aloud to men and women. Most men have an easier time understanding directions when miles and cardinal points are included, whereas women have an easier time following directions using physical landmarks. Spatial reasoning means men are naturally better at finding cardinal points like north and south, making this experiment another valid test proving men have the advantage in spatial reasoning. One explanation to this is millions of years ago it was a man's job to head out the wilderness, track and kill animals, and then find their way home. This gives them the advantage among building things and picturing where things are placed, which may contribute to the male dominance in things like the STEM field and STEM related careers.

This episode of Brain Games proves through a few simple experiments that men and women really are biologically different in several ways, and it affects their behavior to gain the advantage in different areas like spatial reasoning or following directions. Not only is this is helpful to further our understanding of the two genders, but it also allows to think about how genders should be treated in the eyes of the law. If men and women simply do not have the same strengths and weaknesses, should they be treated completely equally in all aspects of the law?

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.

The show is pretty good and educational for most of its run. Sometimes the games were dumb but most of them were good. The show did get a little repititive but I enjoyed the first seven seasons. The show changes alot from seasons 1-7 but I still like all of those seasons. The show can teach you a lot of cool things In season eight they made it more of a game show with celebrities every episode and a magician whose tricks were obviously fake like guessing which random person in the crowd had a hat, which is statistically impossible but he guessed it because they faked it. Would recommended just skip season eight.

Wow. Just wow. When I was younger I remember myself watching this show and being so curious & interested by it. When I got a bit older, I was watching National Geographic and happened to run into it again. I was mesmerized. My favorite show there is!

Even though an average (human) adult brain weighs only 3 lbs. and barely generates more than 12 watts of power, it's certainly a mighty complex mass of "grey matter" that can readily store and retrieve a million bits of information and help an average person to perform all sorts of tasks, some surprisingly complicated, some not.

The 2-disc set that I watched contained 3, 1-hour episodes from the best of TV's "Brain Games" in its first season of 2011.

Set in Las Vegas, Nevada - This is a very slick production that plays "perception/memory" games with its audience in order to find out if the viewer is, indeed, really paying attention (which, in most cases, we aren't).

For the most part - I found Brain Games to be actually quite entertaining - But, when trying to get its point across - This show did, sometimes, resort to a fair amount of superfluous "hocus-pocus" type stuff.

... you have got to cool it with all the masonry symbolism, black and white floors, etc. Enough already!

The series is very interesting to introduce psychological studies.... but they lie to the audience saying "hidden camera" experiments.

Everyone is an actor, even the supposedly "unaware test subjects". You can easily identify all actors by their neat new clothes always in solid colors.#fakenews

This show is far from scientific, intellectual or even honest. For the first perhaps nine episodes they actually provide some level of honesty, entertainment, and a decently simplified scientific explanation. After that they abandon honesty, they LIE to you, offer pseudo-scientific explanations as well as abandon creativity. They decide that their audience is a collection of absolute imbeciles. They masquerade fancy slight of hand type tricks as explanations of stress, and memory. In season three they do not abandon this, they begin to resort to what is rather obviously bad acting. Their experts almost always have a pretentious tone. Their goal is to fool those without a shred of common sense to continue watching. If you are looking for something intelligent or even entertaining look somewhere else.

If seen free of skepticism and with an open eye; the possibilities from what you could learn... are endless.

I did liked this show a lot. I felt there was something special about it. The brain games themselves were fun and if you watched the show a lot, you start to become good or progress as a viewer and this show works really well for education or psychology. Even kids who just want to watch and our curious of these games can still find some enjoyment and might learn a lot from being underdeveloped. However, as the show went on. It kinda hurts to say, but it does feel a little stale and boring at times as the show goes on. Also people complained about the new season. I haven't seen it yet, but I seen clips and the show has change a lot where it feels way too different from before. I'm sure some people like this season, but for me I'm not sure I will. I hoped to be suprised by it. The show has a lot of repeated games or moments that feels like I'm watching some of the same subjects and feels a waste of time when you see longer episodes. I also miss Apollo Robbins, but the new illusionist is good also. One thing that hurts the show is the fact it's rated G. The G rating can work on some episodes, but as a whole show, I wouldn't show kids this only of it's a G rated episodes. Sometimes this show can get a too bit werid or uncomfortably off topic and dark. Some kids can see mature or unfriendly content that shouldn't really be there unless it's to help the narrative. Also these jokes can be sexual or inappropriate for no reason other than be funny or relevant. Which isn't called for at all. Overall, I would give this show a 10/10 if some repetitive stuff and stupid jokes or dialogue would be taken away and makes this show more for everyone like they do in some episodes and I think this show will be one of the best docuseries of all time for kids, teens, adults, and educational services.

What on earth happened to this show?! This used to be a really fun and educational show to watch, with all kinds of semi-interactive experiments. Now it's a glorified game show, with contestants and the works - the likes of which I haven't seen since Nickelodeon in the 80s - what on earth happened? This show no longer bears any resemblance *at all* to the show that it once was.

I'd heard about the show here and there. I've seen the Nat Geo announcement on TV, suffice it to say, it piqued my interest. The show came with a promise: "You watch it, you'll learn stuff!"

What unquantifiable disappointment that was...

Watching it, I couldn't help but feel cheated, belittled and robbed of my time. I'm not basing what I'm about to type on 1 or two episodes I've watched, no. I bore with it... for a whole season, including the start of this year's latest batch.

You see, the problem with this show is that it is founded on the basis that you, the viewer, MUST be stupid. And quite frankly, I do feel stupider upon watching it. I haven't watched the very first episodes, from what reviewers say, they were the best. But it doesn't take a rocket-scientist to tell you that they are trying way too hard to keep this show afloat. It all feels stretched WAY out of proportion. I have yet to watch a single episode where I learn something and don't facepalm (literally) every second, where the host and his band of "experts" aren't so pretentious.

Now that's another great problem: The pretentious cast. Once you realize how none of what you see or hear actually "fools your Brain" (as they claim it will), or whatever the hell they thought it would do, it starts feeling like a grand scam. It's a show, on TV. It's not live, sure, and a wide variety of profiles are watching it... But then, WHY have this pseudo-interactivity, with their puzzles and games? I get it that it's supposed to engage the viewers, you aren't just passively watching the show... But when all your stupid easy 'games' (which are supposed to be corroborated by what mumbo-jumbo of a scientific explanation you throw next) all end with the assumption that WE got it wrong... Woah the anger. Really, this show makes me angry. And I've no anger issues whatsoever in general.

It could be that I'm not part of the targeted audience (although I have no pretension of knowing everything that there is to know about everything), but then WHAT is that target?

Watch at your own risk if you have a shred of self conscience. Hell, if you have a shred of anything... I'm not going to judge you like that show does.

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.

I loved this show until I found out they lie. I just watched a segment about 3D where they brought out a plate of food, and a cheese plate and a glass of water with flowers in it. They then tried to convince you that the stuff they brought out was actually printed on paper (2D).. and that your brain had been "tricked". The problem is, the stuff they brought out WAS real, and through not so clever editing, they LIED to make the illusion seem legit. I know this because the water in the glass moved around slightly, impossible for "printed" water to do. There are all other giveaways that segment was rigged if you look closely.... shadows that are present on the real plate of food become much less pronounced on the "image" that is supposed to have tricked you.

Right off the bat this show assumes the viewer is the world's dumbest asshole, and it's downhill from there.

This show is offensive, has bad acting, little scientific bases in anything it does, and isn't worth watching or discussing, unless you're really really stupid.

I gave this show a chance, National geographic channel has put out some great shows (locked up abroad, documentaries, Alaska troopers among others etc) in the last few years and was surprised how bad this was. I am really baffled by this shows high ratings here.

I watched one episode it comes off as extremely pretentious and more like to something I would be forced to watch in middle school science class rather than entertainment. The show consists of people being tricked over and over in different manners and claiming it is based in neurological science and "brain games" when in fact it comes across as pretentious, boring and extremely dull. Not funny, not clever, not based in actual science or any semblance of logic, if you enjoy watching a bunch of parlor tricks for a half hour then by all means watch this garbage show with little to no entertainment value I would rather not.