SuperBrain™ Gym Programme
It is designed to continuously train the brain to improve its various executive functions
Executive functions are much more influenced by nurture, experience and interaction than intelligence is
Cognitive Skills
Cognitive abilities, or skills, are a set of key functions that facilitate, and are crucial to learning. Cognitive literally means “brain,” and cognitive skills are the equipment we all possess, to a greater or lesser degree, that help us think and process information in a variety of ways.
People often get confused between cognitive skills and academic skills. All of the Mathematics, English, Science and other subjects taught in the classroom are academic skills. The basis for cognitive learning is solely within the mental capabilities. When these skills are weak, academic learning can become an increasing struggle.
One question that is often pondered on is whether or not cognitive skills can improve. The good news is that it is possible for them to improve. Thanks to brain plasticity, you can train your brain and cognitive abilities and create a lasting change. There is room for improvement as these skills can be strengthened and enhanced no matter how old the person may be. Even younger people can benefit from training their cognitive skills.
A key point to keep in mind is that it is not necessarily how much you know, but how effectively one processes the information that is received. You will often times find students in the classroom simply cramming information into their head before a test. But a few weeks later they cannot remember what they just learned.
Executive functions are the set of cognitive skills necessary for controlling and self-regulating your behavior. Executive functions allow you to establish, maintain, supervise, correct, and carry out a plan of action. This set of cognitive functions make up part of our everyday lives, and help us successfully and efficiently get through daily activities.
In a nutshell, cognitive skills greatly impact what you learn and how well it is learned. Keep in mind these skills can be developed, enhanced and strengthened over time. These skills have also a great impact in your overall life as the way you process information and use it is linked in many ways to your daily living experience.
Our Gym Programmes:
Memory
Memory can be defined as the brain’s ability to retain information and voluntarily recover it when needed. In other words, memory is what makes it possible to remember facts, ideas, feelings, relationships between concepts, and any other type of stimuli that happened in the past. While the hippocampus is the main part of the brain related to memory, we can’t locate memories in a specific part of the brain, as there are a number of brain areas used in memory, such as reading, reasoning, mental calculation, mental imagery, etc. We constantly use our memory and it helps us develop a stock of common knowledge, personal memories or motor processes.
Types of Memory:
- Depending on how long information stays in the system: This would be the case in sensory memory, short-term memory, working memory, and long-term memory. Sensory memory retains information for a few seconds, while long-term memory can store memory for an almost unlimited amount of time. All of these types of memory work together so that the system can work properly.
- Depending on the type of information: You could say that verbal memory is in charge of retaining the information with verbal content (something read or spoken), while non-verbal memory manages the rest of the information (images, sounds, feelings, etc.).
- Depending on the sensory organ: Depending on the feelings perceived, we refer to visual memory (vision), auditory memory (sound), olfactory memory (smell), gustatory memory (taste), and haptic memory (touch).
Concentration
Concentration (Attention) is the ability to choose and pay attention on relevant stimuli. Concentration is the cognitive process that makes it possible to position ourselves towards relevant stimuli and consequently respond to it. Concentration is very critical to the brain, because you can’t expect that much from a distracted mind.
Types of Concentration/ Attention:
- Arousal: Refers to our activation level and level of alertness, whether we are tired or energized.
- Focused Attention: Refers to our ability to focus attention on a stimulus.
- Sustained Attention: The ability to attend to a stimulus or activity over a long period of time.
- Selective Attention: The ability to attend to a specific stimulus or activity in the presence of other distracting stimuli.
- Alternating Attention: The ability to change focus attention between two or more stimuli.
- Divided Attention: The ability to attend different stimuli or attention at the same time.
Spatial
Spatial (Perception) is the ability to capture, process, and actively make sense of the information that our senses receive. It is the cognitive process that makes it possible to interpret our surroundings with the stimuli that we receive throughout sensory organs. Spatial is an active process and requires that we process information with both “bottom-up” and “top-down” processing, meaning that we are not only directed by the stimuli that we receive (passive, bottom-up processing) but that we expect and anticipate certain stimuli that control spatial (active, top-up processing).
Perception is divided in five senses:
- Visual : The ability to see and interpret light information within the visible spectrum that arrives to our eyes.
- Hearing : Ability to receive and interpret information that arrives to our ears by audible frequency waves through the air or another mean (sound). The brain part in charge of the basic stage of auditory perception is the temporal lobe.
- Touch, touch perception, somatosensory or haptic perception : The capacity to interpret information of pressure and vibration received on the surface of our skin. The parietal lobe is the part of the brain responsible for the basic stages in haptic perception.
- Smell or olfactory perception: The ability to interpret information of chemical substances dissolved in the air (smell).
- Taste or taste perception: The ability to interpret information from chemical substances dissolved in saliva (taste).
Logic
Logic is the ability for consciously making sense of things, establishing and verifying facts, applying logic, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art and is normally considered to be a distinguishing ability possessed by humans.