Network 2, abilities and functions

  
2.1 Senses of sight, hearing, distance, rhythm, direction & balance

2.2 Proprioception/ kinesthesia, dexterity & locomotion

2.3 Spatial memory & association

2.4 Spatial processing & 2D mapping

2.5 Motivation, Orientation

2.6 Observation

2.1 Senses of sight, hearing, distance, rhythm, direction & balance

Sight

Eyeball muscle exercise:

Moving the eyeballs in all the directions they can go (including round and round) for a few seconds each day (be precise and increase time gradually to avoid strain) will restore flexibility to the eyeball. The exercise will also massage the eyeball. Be methodical. Up, down, left, right, diagonals, round and round. Movements between the positions should be slow and steady, the eye focusing naturally. Do not neglect to blink regularly.

Lens muscle exercise:

The other muscular operation of the eye is the focusing of the lense inside the eyeball. People often tire their eyes by using them for long periods at a fixed focal length. If this tends to happen in your occupation, take some time out to smoothly shift your focus from near to far objects. Repeat this many times (start with 30 seconds and increase slowly to whatever is comfortable. Then try and relax your eyes so that everything goes out of focus, and after a few seconds snap back into focusing on something within range.

Depth of field exercise

Sit somewhere there is a clear long-distance view; either outdoors or looking out of a window. If you wear glasses or contact lenses, remove them. Hold your finger up in front of your face about a foot (30cm) away.

Stare at your finger for about ten seconds (just count to ten silently) then move the finger aside and look at an object in the distance, even if you cannot see it clearly. Try to focus on it for a further count of ten, then move your finger in front of your face and focus on it for the next count of ten. Repeat this at least twice.

As you get used to this exercise you can increase the number of repeats up to twenty; however, you should always stop as soon as you feel the slightest indication of eyestrain.

If you practise this exercise regularly and you wear glasses or lenses, you may have to change your prescription because your eyesight will improve. Make sure you get regular eye tests to make sure your current prescription is still correct!

Using Peripheral Vision

(needs assistant): Stand staring straight ahead. The assistant introduces objects into your cone of vision from behind. Say when you first see the object and then try to identify it without moving you eyeballs. Start with large brightly colored geometric objects and move on to smaller more camouflaged objects. Assess each other's progress.

Hearing

Sound Identifying Exercise

This one can be done completely on your own, and without the aid or addition of any sound devices, tools, or sources. All you need to do is sit down somewhere, the best is outside, and listen to your surroundings. Try to pick out different sounds and identify their sources. You will find that you are fairy good at this, but there will be some noises that you have never heard before, and this will enlighten you and heighten your senses even more..

Input control practice -Off the racket (hack & exercise)

Get sound-wise. You live in a sonic world, constant vibrations stimulate microscopic hair cells deep inside your ears. These frequencies can influence our neurochemistry and our brainwave patterns, and hence our mood, learning, and health.Some of it we can put to beneficial use; as inspiring or relaxing music, as interaction in speech, as part of the beauty of nature, but what we don't usually notice is the racket of noise pollution we get as an unfortunate side effect of some current technology. We usually ignore it as a background ambient in our lives, but biology can't ignore anything that is able to influence it.

The main thing noise pollution does is overaccustom us to distraction -so that we feel distracted when it is no longer there (in the same way we notice a ticking clock only when it stops). This decreases our awareness, so if you live in the 'average' noisy environment where you can hear computers humming or traffic or household appliances, try to find or set up a 'racket free zone' or quiet zone. You might find an outdoor place where nobody goes if you live near a rural area, you might build a 'retreat pod' or a REST chamber as your soundproof zone, it might be that your neighborhood is really quiet between two and five in the morning, you might find it's really quiet in the attic or in the cellar, but wherever it is find the quietest place you know and go there at least once a week for thirty minutes.

Accustom yourself to silence and listening to the faint sounds you can still hear, and relax. If you feel uneasy in the silence, it's likely that you are overaccustomed to distraction and you should practice until silence seems just as 'normal' as your usual environment. At this point your overall awareness will increase and your attention will improve.

We also use sound in ways that harm ourselves; for example you wouldn't start the day by giving yourself an injection of anxiety hormones, would you? But the rude awakening that alarm clocks produce gives us exactly that each morning -what a charming way to start the day! The technical term for the unpleasant shock of awaking to an alarm is "acoustic startle response". As well as giving us that squirt of anxiety it raises our blood pressure and heart rate (all loud, sudden unexpected noises do this).

If you've been living with this kind of rude awakening there are some things you can do. You can swap a noisy alarm for one that's more musical but just as insistent, you can arrange your life so that you can live without the alarm at weekends, you can go to bed earlier so that you awake naturally.

Music/Ear Training

Music Lesson (hack/exercise)

You don’t have to know any music theory to do this; you just need your ears. Put on a piece of music that you like. The only rule is, it must be musically in time and in tune. Sit still and quiet and listen to it carefully, and try to work out where the lowest and the highest bits of melody are. If there is a singer or a lead instrument, where do they hit the highest notes in the song?

When the song is over, sit in silence for a moment and see if you can remember the main tune well enough to whistle or hum it back.

Don’t put in any words, just concentrate on the tune. If you can’t do this don’t worry, just practise the exercise and notice whether you can remember some tunes better than others. You can start with something as simple as ‘happy birthday’ if you want to; it doesn’t have to be complicated, but you should have an example to listen to; don’t just do it from memory without listening first, even if you think you know it well. –And don’t ask a friend to sing it for you unless you’re sure they can sing well and in tune.

When you are able to reconstruct simple melodies you may wish to increase, step by step, the complexity of music chosen for this exercise.

Practising this exercise once or twice a week will improve your sensorimotor and spatial memory as well as your musical ear.

Ear Music Training Games (exercise)

http://trainer.thetamusic.com/

Free to play until level 4, enough to get some basic training. Higher levels require membership but you still can keep playing the lower levels for free if you want.

Pitching Exercises and Resources

http://www.vocalist.org.uk/pitching_exercises.html

Distance

Distance estimation (exercise)

Think of two places close by that you regularly visit on foot. Guess the distances.

Which do you think is the farthest away?

The next time you go to each place, take a stopwatch. Walk at your normal pace and time the journey. How close were your guesses?

Are you aware of your walking speed? Think of a way to check this (for example if you know a distance between any two points, time yourself walking there at normal pace, or use a gym machine that can tell you how far you've walked in what time.) Healthy adult humans walk between 4 and 5km per hour (3 or 4 mph)

Rhythm (exercise)

Timing & rhythm

1. You will need a stopwatch or a clock/watch with a second hand. For this first exercise you need space to walk in and you may prefer privacy.

Start your stopwatch or pay attention to your clock. Walk forward, taking only one step every five seconds, for a full minute. As soon as your minute is up, continue walking but take two steps every five seconds, for two minutes. Keep an eye on the watch and try and keep strictly to time.

If you really can't find the space to do this, you can walk 'on the spot' or on a treadmill at the gym, but it is far better to be actually walking, even if around in circles.

Next, try the same technique taking three steps every five seconds. Do this for two minutes.

2. You need to be somewhere that you can listen to music. Put some music on; any kind will do. Look at your watch or clock and note the time, then immediately close your eyes. Try to guess when thirty seconds has elapsed and when you think it has, open your eyes and check the watch to see if you are right. Note down how far away your guess was.

Use a different piece of music each time you do this exercise. Once a day is sufficient.

3. Sit facing a table with your hands resting on your knees and your watch or clock on the table in plain view. If you're using a stopwatch, start it now. When 5 seconds have passed, tap your left hand on your left knee just once. When the watch reaches ten seconds, tap your right hand on your right knee once. Continue for one minute.

Next, do it with your feet. On the five-second mark, tap your left foot, on ten seconds your right foot, and so on for another minute. Try to get the taps exactly at the right moment. Do this exercise as often as you like.

If you find this easy, try tapping along with just one hand in time to the clock -one tap per second. Next try alternate hands. Use this exercise instead of the above.

If you can do all this with no problem, try tapping along to some music in the same way. Choose something with a good steady drumbeat that sounds like a clock; not too fast.

Rhythm Tool

http://www.metronomeonline.com/

Music Test ( Tonedeaf Test, Adaptive Pitch, Rhythm Test)

http://www.jakemandell.com/

Direction

Sound Location Exercise (needs assistant)

This hearing improvement exercise is exactly what it claims itself to be. You will be improving your hearing sense by listening to a specific sound and attempting to locate the exact position of it’s creator. For this exercise, you will need someone else to help you out, as placing a sound making device in a room on your own doesn’t necessarily help you to locate it without knowing where it is =p. You will need some kind of device that makes a soft noise, and some white noises to try to mask your devices noise. Have your friend place the noise making device somewhere in a room or even the house, where you have no clue where it is. The goal of this exercise is to find the device as quickly as possible, using your sense of sound. This will, over time, help to improve your sense of sound and thus your hearing will improve as well. Do this until you have significantly improved the speed at which you find the device, and monitor your results.

Judging Direction of Sounds (exercise) (needs assistant)

You need to be blindfolded; Sit In a chair in the middle of a large room. Block one ear with a hand or an earplug. Now get a friend to move about quietly making sharp sounds in different parts of the room. Repeat the experiment with both ears open. Which directions are the hardest to be sure of? Make a chart and check the response several times in each position.

If your sense of direction with two ears open is not excellent repeat this as an exercise at regular intervals.

Balance

Ninja (exercise)

a) Find two positions in which you can balance for one whole minute on one leg. One on the right, one on the left. Make a note of them or draw stick figures. The next day, find two different positions until you have found four for each side. Continue practicing these for another ten days, choosing a different pair of your positions each day. How much has your wobble reduced? When it has reduced noticeably, proceed to the next stage.

b) Stand. Move up onto tip toe. Keep balanced, lower slowly through stand to crouch and on (if possible) to sitting on your haunches. Then slowly up again. Arms may be held in different positions each time. Out to front, to side etc. This is a difficult exercise and to do ten up and down without overbalancing may take you some time. When you can do this consistently, move on to the next stage.

c) Create something that you can walk along and balance on, close to the floor. A plank or beam of wood is perfect, a very low thin table or row of bricks or even books (of the same size) is fine. Don't make it higher than one row by piling things up. Walk along it forwards without looking. Walk backwards. Balance on one leg. Become confident on this 'plank' then move on to the next stage. (If you use walking in a straight line as a test for sobriety, remember that this test may now be screwed.)

d) Using your awareness of the whole body find the place that your body balances over this supportive plank. Then begin to move arms and legs and notice how the center of gravity changes position depending on the shape you are making. Try and pin point this center in your body and notice how it shifts in relation to changes in body form. Don't worry about losing your balance in this part; just play around with it in an aware frame of mind. You will gradually internalize and embody an awareness of your center of gravity

At first large movements are OK. Then as you get the hang of it reduce the size and speed of movements until movements are very slow and small. The most important information will be found on this fine-tuned level of perception.

Ninja 2

Stand up and raise one leg, clasping the knee in your hands. Try not to overbalance. Stay in this position for about a minute, then try it with the opposite leg/arm. Note whether you have a side on which it is easier to balance.

Next, close your eyes and see whether it is more difficult to keep your balance. If you like a challenge, have a clock with a second hand ready and see how long you managed to stay on one leg with your eyes closed.  Do this exercise once a day. If you find it extremely easy, move on to the next exercise.

Stand up with your hands by your sides. Raise your right foot behind you [like a horse being shod] and try to grab hold of your foot with your opposite [left] hand. Once you can do this, hold onto it and raise your other hand, stretching upwards as far as you can. When you can do this without losing your balance, try it with the opposite leg/arm and then try the ‘eyes closed’ version as above. Do this exercise once a day.

Don’t try this before you can do the first two exercises above! Stand upright and raise your right leg in front of you, taking hold of your foot with both hands. Place your foot against your upper left thigh as though it was in a ‘crosslegged’ position. Bend your left leg slightly to allow the foot to rest there without being held. Once you’ve got the hang of this bit, raise both hands above your head and press the palms together. Try this with the opposite leg/arm and then try the ‘eyes closed’ version as above. Do this exercise once a day.

Make a pile of soft things (cushions, pillows, your colleagues) about 30CM (a foot) high. Kneel down in front of it and lean forward, resting your tummy on top of the pile and putting your hands on the ground at the other side. When you feel comfortably balanced, lean forward as far as you can and try to put your head between your hands, pushing up with your feet and raising yourself off your knees if you have to.

2.2 Proprioception/ kinesthesia, dexterity & locomotion

Simple reflex test

(needs assistant or 'release mechanism') Position your hand so that your thumb and forefinger are about 2cm (1") apart, (as though you were holding up an invisible test tube about 30cm from your face). The assistant holds a 30cm ruler vertically with the lower-numbered end towards the ground, just above your hand aimed between the thumb and finger. At some random moment they drop it and you catch it between your finger & thumb. Don't let go! Look at the measurement of how much of the ruler fell through your fingers before you were able to respond and grasp it. With practice you should catch it on a lower number.

Which hand has the fastest response time? What does that tell you about the opposite motor cortex?

Proprioception

“Stop-motion” (exercise)

This exercise is best done whenever you have some free time, as it looks a bit odd to the external observer.

At random times during the day, when you are in the middle of doing something, stop moving. Try to ‘freeze’ without tensing your muscles or going floppy, as though you were in a video that was suddenly paused. Hold your pose for 15 seconds [just count, don’t look at your watch] then continue with whatever you were doing. During the 15 seconds try to keep as still as possible without changing your muscular tension or holding your breath. Use your common sense -don’t decide to do this exercise halfway through coming downstairs or getting into the bath!

If you find it difficult to remember to do this at first, leave yourself a note somewhere you are bound to go during the day at some point, for example in your bathroom or bedroom. Train yourself to remember to do the exercise without notes.

Practising this exercise once or twice a day will improve your sensory motor and spatial memory, and also your balance and poise. Because of the way the brain works, you may find your appreciation of music improves too.

Syncopation (hack + exercise)

Sit down and raise your right arm in front of you. Pretending you are drawing anti-clockwise circles on a wall and move your hand/arm accordingly. Now begin to rotate your right foot/lower leg in a clockwise direction.

What happens?

For most people it becomes impossible to do both at the same time, much like the childhood game of rubbing your tummy with one hand while patting the top of your head with the other. Consciously we desire to do both actions, but the unconscious part of our processing confuses the unfamiliar mixture of sensory input. You will find though, that with practice both feats can be accomplished. We advise you to master these kinds of sensory motor tricks because they too are good for your intelligence. You’ll find that the sensory motor tasks you already do, such as typing or playing a musical instrument or driving, will all improve, as will your overall hand/eye coordination. Most importantly, this is one of the paths towards hacking into the unconscious, so it’s good practice for later fun.

Note: some people find this really, really hard to do. If you’re one of them, or if you just want to cheat and take a shortcut, ask a good friend or member of your family to hold onto your arm and ‘make’ your hand do the anticlockwise movement, then concentrate just on the leg. Your body will learn the overall task without your having to work so hard, although your assistant might think it’s a peculiar request.

syncopation 2 (new)

Most people cannot simultaneously draw a circle with one hand and a square with the other. It gets complicated because the mind has to shift attention back and forth from one task to the other until one or both become automatic.

First, see if you are one of the unusual ones who can do this without needing to hack it.

If you are with the majority who can't, get yourself some stiff cardboard, scissors and a pen.

Make 2 templates out of cardboard; by drawing a square and a circle, and cutting out the shapes from the card surround (so that the shapes are 'holes'). Have them on separate bits of card. Tape their edges to 2 sheets of paper and practice tracing around the shapes simultaneously with a pencil in each hand. After some practice you will be able to do it without the 'guides'.

Mirror writing (hack + exercise)

Very straightforward and simple: Prop up a mirror and write a story, letter or list, looking only at what's going on in the mirror. Great fun at parties!

Hack proprioception association

[NEEDS AN ASSISTANT]

Hold your arms out in front of you and cross them over, rotate your hands so your palms face each other, then mesh your fingers together. Now slowly rotate your hands up between your arms so you're staring at your knuckles. Ask someone to point to one of your index fingers, then attempt to move it. Did you move the wrong one?

Congruent proprioception association fails because of a confusing visual input. You don't normally see your hands in this convoluted position and your mind certainly doesn't expect them to be there; the finger you move is the one that is pointing in the direction that the correct one would be pointing if you had simply clasped your hands.

[NEEDS ASSISTANT]

If you want to go all the way in confusing proprioception, repeat the research above: get hold of a model hand (it doesn't have to be very realistic) and put it on the table in front of you. If it is a left hand, put your actual left hand somewhere you can't see it, in the same pose as the rubber hand. Now get someone to touch and stroke your unseen hand and the rubber hand with identical movements. If you concentrate on the rubber hand, you will probably get the uncanny feeling that it is your own. If you get an assistant to unexpectedly punch the fake arm after you have played with it for a while, you will jump in expectancy of pain.

Imagination will happily override information from proprioception to conjure up an incorrect yet coherent body schema based on vision and touch.

Adepts only: If you do this on hallucinogens or even cannabis, you can go much further than the 'fake arm' researchers and convince yourself that pretty much anything is part of your body. Sit at a table and put your hand out of sight underneath. Get someone to tap and stroke this hand while doing exactly the same to the table top directly above. If you watch the table top, you may experience the illusion that the table has become part of your body. Warning: some experiments may cause bouts of giggling.

Kinesthesia exercises:

Close your eyes. With your left hand, point forward then immediately touch the very tip of your own nose. Try the same exercise with your right hand. Which one was most accurate? The least accurate side needs the most exercise, but remember motor functions are 'crossed over' in the brain (so the right side of brain controls the left side of body), so the 'side' of N2 you need to work on is OPPOSITE the weakest hand. 

NOTE: Those under moderate to severe alcohol intoxication may have difficulty locating their limbs in space relative to their noses.

Kinesthesia is what allows us to walk without having to watch our feet, and perform motor tasks in complete darkness without losing our balance. Practicing motion in darkness with eyes closed or blindfolds is just as effective. Try ordinary everday tasks such as taking a bath with your eyes closed. Can you get around your home with closed eyes from room to room, without holding on to furniture? How about closed eyes with headphones on? Temporarily knocking out other senses like this improves kinesthetic senses, and they stay improved when the blindfold comes off.

Neurokinetic Body Imaging (exercise)

Start off any imaging session with relaxation and a general sensory focus. Stand erect with feet apart and sense how your body feels now. Accept things as they are, without value judgments.

Now imagine you are an android. You weigh about he same because your skeleton is a strong light metal or carbon fiber. You have just been built and you are currently attached to a 'center line' that is calibrating your posture. The center line goes all the way up inside your spine from your pelvis and comes out the top of your head, it is attached to a support high above and it holds you in perfect postural balance (this line can be imagined as made of laser light, monofilament, steel wire, or as an abstract - anything that feels light.)

Allow your weight to hang from this line (relax your arms and shoulders). Sway slightly as though a breeze is blowing you, forwards and backwards, left and right, and feel your skeleton's center of balance. Notice that when you are lined up with this center line, your posture feels more comfortable. Imagine yourself as supported; as though you are held up and balanced by the line from the top of your head.

Once you are able to imagine this, begin slow movement. Learn how to remain aligned with your center support line and move about (this can feel uncannily like being a puppet -but don't worry; you're the puppeteer). Finding your center line is of fundamental importance to all movement and posture including breathing. If you do a martial art you may know this technique already by some other name.

With the center line image established in a standing position, swing the arms around the axis, turning from the waist so the hips do not move. Swing back and forward in an easy manner. The slower the movements can be done in image work the more useful information you are likely to be able to pick up. Another useful movement is bending the knees. Let the sacrum drop just a few inches, then slide up the long center line. Repeat.

Gradually incorporate this image into tasks such as going up and down stairs, walking around your home, or outdoors.

Proprioception and kinesthesia can be improved via many methods. Examples:

Feldenkrais method

Alexander Technique

Juggling trains reaction time, spatial location, and efficient movement. Standing on a wobble board or balance board is often used to retrain or increase proprioception abilities, particularly as physical therapy for ankle or knee injuries.

Slacklining is another method to increase proprioception.

Standing on one leg (stork standing) and various other body-position challenges are also used in such disciplines as Yoga, Wing Chun and Tai Chi.

Several studies have shown that the efficacy of these types of training is challenged by closing the eyes, because the eyes give invaluable feedback to establishing the moment-to-moment information of balance.

There are specific devices designed for proprioception training, such as the exercise ball here, which works on balancing the abdominal and back muscles.

Locomotion:

If you work on kinesthetic awareness and proprioception, your movements will automatically become more graceful and less clumsy. But sometimes we are stuck with a motor problem as a result of accident, illness or injury and in these cases we have to research physiology exercises specific to our needs, the millions of which cannot be listed here. However, one thing is for certain -people sustain less damage and repair more efficiently when the system is in good condition to start with. If we don't do any kind of physical activity, muscles and bones atrophy (use it in the right way, or lose it). Our physical condition feeds back in unconscious self assessment and consequently self esteem, and serotonin levels fall. So...

There are lots of different physical activities that improve the agility and grace of our movement. Just choose some:

Martial Arts (Karate, Kung Fu, Tai Chi); Rowing, rock climbing, orienteering, swimming, walking, basketball, ping-pong, Parkour, Yoga, playing with kids, dancing, juggling, trampolining, etc....

Specific area hacks:

MRI detects localized cerebral cortex expansion after people learn complex tasks such as mirror reading (the right occipital cortex), navigation (hippocampus), or three-ball juggling (bilateral mid-temporal area and left posterior intraparietal sulcus). Such changes in gray matter volume can be expected to link to changes in synapse numbers due to the increased numbers of glial cells and the expanded capillary vascularization needed to support their increased energy consumption.

2.3 Spatial memory & association

NOTE: Some of the resources need to have FLASH/Java plugin installed on your computer. Taking into account that you need flash even to play videos in youtube I don't think it should be a problem.

Improving sensorimotor association (exercises)

http://www.cambridgebrainsciences.com/b … an-ladder

http://www.cambridgebrainsciences.com/play/monkey-span-ladder

http://www.hypergurl.com/flashgames/concentration-memory-game.shtml

http://www.allstarpuzzles.com/memory/00041E.html

Tune in to your body (exercise)

Take a minute out and sit very still. Now, place your hands on the arms of the chair or the desk in front of you, and try to focus your attention on counting your heartbeats. Can you feel a throbbing drum roll, a slight murmur or nothing at all? How does your bladder feel – is it empty or will you need to visit the bathroom within the next half hour? How relaxed are you -particularly in the back and shoulder areas? You may be surprised to learn that tuning in to these bodily sensations is helping you think. Recent discoveries about mind-body connections have overturned the view of the body as a passive vehicle driven by the brain. Instead there is more of a partnership, with bodily experiences playing an active role in your mental life. The brain cannot act independently of the body. Tune in to the body's signals like this, and you can exploit the association to improve your creativity, memory and self-control.

For spatial memory (exercise) 

Draw maps from memory of parts of your local area, and a floor plan for your home or other familiar building. Check them out and correct them later. This habit improves spatial memory really fast.

Exercise for spatial association 

Let’s give your memory a bit of exercise. You can do this at work or in a library or café, etc. Get a piece of paper and sketch a rough floor-plan of your home, indicating the shape of rooms, roughly but not necessarily strictly to scale. On your plan, write down the color of the floor covering in each room and name the largest item of furniture in that room. If you only live in one room, you must name six items in the room and the color of the walls.

If you can’t remember, or to check if you are right, go and have a look as soon as you are able, and the next time you are away from home try this exercise again.

When you get it right, you can design your own exercises of this nature, using other places you have been as the targets to sketch and describe. When you first visit a new place, try to sketch your surroundings from memory as soon as possible, maybe on the first night, in bed, so that you can check what you missed when visiting them again the next day. Drawing streetmaps of areas is another good version of this exercise. You can also try remembering items out of a picture and making a rough sketch of what is where. Choose places and pictures that you like, so that it’s more fun to do this exercise.

You are improving your spatial and associative memory in doing this exercise. If you practise it regularly you will start to notice that you are becoming naturally more observant on first encounters than you were previously. Using this network sharpens it up, and it starts taking more notice of your surroundings because it is getting into the habit of being aware that “this information might be needed later”. [The brain doesn’t know that you are merely doing exercises, which is why this is also a sort of hack.] It just goes ahead and improves its memory performance because this is what “seems to be expected of it.”

2.4 Spatial processing & 2D mapping

Spatial skills

Test Spatial Skills

http://www.3smartcubes.com/pages/tests/ … ions.asp 

http://www.psychometric-success.com/practice-papers/Psychometric%20Success%20Spatial%20Ability%20-%20Practice%20Test%201.pdf

and more

http://www.psychometric-success.com/aptitude-tests/spatial-reasoning-tests.htm

Spatial Reasoning Test

http://www.fibonicci.com/spatial-reasoning/test/

Solid Test

http://spatiallearning.org/resource-info/Spatial_Ability_Tests/Santa_Barbara_Solids_Test_rev_1210.pdf

Mental Rotation Exercises/Games/Testing

http://fordyce.inf.ed.ac.uk/release/demos/mental-rotation.html

http://www.cambridgebrainsciences.com/b … ation-task

http://bjornson.inhb.de/?p=55

https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/johnchay/www/mr3.21e5.html

http://www.psych.uni.edu/psychexps/Exps/Mental_Rotation/startmr.htm

http://psych.hanover.edu/JavaTest/CLE/Cognition/Cognition/MentalRotation.html

(Mental Rotation Training, this one has a lot of personalization settings)

http://www.3dtris.de/

(3D Tetris)

http://www.freetetris.org/game.php

(2D Tetris)

http://playwithyourmind.com/brain-fitness-games/visual-spatial-exercises/pattern-match/

Cross Section Test

http://spatiallearning.org/resource-info/Spatial_Ability_Tests/Santa_Barbara_Solids_Test_rev_1210.pdf

And more Tests and Resources Here:

http://spatiallearning.org/index.php/testsainstruments

http://viz.bd.psu.edu/viz/ 

(VIZ is a site dedicated to the understanding and improvement of spatial visualization skills)

 http://www3.ul.ie/tilde_accs/mearsa/www/9519211/ 

(exercises, tasks and examples will help you develop your spatial brain - that part of your overall intelligence which deals with the visual information which is almost always a major part of all data the brain processes).

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/edu/DLESE/ … st00a.html

(Excellent Theory about spatial thinking, and examples to get ideas to new exercises)

Elica Software (lots of mini apps, for playing with spatial skills)

http://www.elica.net/site/museum/museum.html

Seems like they used that software for this research in spatial training

http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/45969/1/Christou_etc_Developing_student_spatial_ability_with_3D_software_CERME5_2007.pdf

Paper Folding Exercise

http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/brace/resourc … n%2007.pdf

Tangrame Game:

http://www.gieson.com/Library/projects/games/matter/

http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/math-games/tanagram-game/

http://tangram.hkheadline.com/e_game.asp

Draw Maps (exercise)

Draw maps from memory of parts of your local area, and a floor plan for your home or other familiar building. Check them out and correct them later. This habit improves spatial memory really fast.

More tips: 

Some tips for improving spatial abilities are provided below:

• Work with plans, sketches and designs.

• Complete visual puzzles.

• Reading maps.

• Estimate angles and length of objects and check the accuracy of your estimates.

• Imagine how objects would look from various angles.

• Look at text books with good illustrations of biological or technical systems.

Mazes Games

http://www.clickmazes.com/

http://mazestoprint.com/hard/

Not enough?

Giant resource about mazes (to print, to play online, software mazes, games, 2D, 3D etc)

Warning: don’t get lost!

http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/maze.htm

Games with "complex maps"

The idea here is don’t focus in “playing” the game, but try to memorize the map and navigate easily in them, go to x place then to y, then see if you remember how you can get back to x, see if you can draw a map of that level, check your accuracy, etc.

Some free Games to start:

Doom

Descent

Quake

DIY mapping (exercise)

Remember the best orientation training always will be your spatial orientation in the real world, so go out and start exploring!

You need your feet on the planet outdoors in the real world and your map-drawing tools in your hands. Walk forward and count the paces to the end of your block or street. That's the start of your map. Make it very simple. Don't include steps or hills, just trace the path you take in 2 dimensions.

Just start by charting the local journeys you make most often, and put in the landmarks as you go. You can count paces if you want to.  Try to head in the direction of the nearest natural landscape. You end up with something like this:

http://www.winnie-the-pooh.kwakkers.com/map.php

Shopping Fun (exercise)

If you go shopping, you can be surprised how people still “get lost” looking for somewhere they know, and don’t remember exactly where is x place in their local area (for example the cinema), -was it on the first or second floor? Turning to right or left? Etc.

Let this motivate you to start training your spatial skills and memory, learning where all the local places are. I did this myself a few times when I went to see some movies, just go with some paper and pen and start taking your notes of places of reference, and see how long it takes you to totally embody your environment so you never get lost there anymore.

2.5 Motivation, Orientation

Input Control for self motivation

Immerse yourself in inspiration (hack)

Watch, listen to, and look at stuff related to what you want to accomplish. Remind yourself of the 'big picture' which is creating a context you can thrive in. Collect things that inspire you and remind you of your aims.

Fung Shui For the Laid Back (hack + exercise)

Do you lead the sort of laid back lifestyle where you like to get things done very simply without wasting any time or energy? A chaotic environment can literally drain your energy, cause additional anxiety, and waste your time, especially when you can't find things! Conversely, a beautifully organized, 'everything-to-hand' environment can be a haven where you can escape from the hassles in your life (plus it looks really cool when you can find everything, and you are ready to go and party at a moment's notice).

Working on de-chaosing your space, doing some creative decorating or simply moving things about are all ways you can work toward the goal of having a beautiful and expediently organized living space, and it saves you wasting time that could be better spent on enjoying yourself.

By 'chaotic' we do NOT mean messy; messy is the sign of activity and life, and it's fine as long as you know where to find everything. By 'organized' we do not mean tidy; prisons are tidy!

Take these simple steps to make life easier for yourself and prevent wasting time:

Stand in the middle of your room. Move the things you use the most closest to where you are likely to be sitting when you need them. Put things you hardly ever use in the least accessible areas, and the things you use regularly somewhere you don't have to bend, crawl or stretch in order to reach them or to put them back. Develop the habit of putting things back in their 'areas' (even if this is just a different pile in each corner), then you always know roughly where to find what sort of things.

Do you constantly have to get up and go into another room to get stuff when you're working in another? Consider moving whatever it is into the main room. Possibilities include a kettle and tea bags or coffee maker actually next to your desk (you're at home; you can do what the fuck you like!); land line telephones or mobiles closer to hand, diaries and reference books etc on shelves right next to you, , DVDs right next to the DVD player; a munchies box of dried fruit & nuts on the desk, garbage bin close by, and remote controls have a designated “home” where they live at all times after being used (very close to where you are sitting). Get into the habit of putting them back there.

You can apply this kind of control to all areas. For example if you hate wasting time washing up, use paper plates (its more hygienic anyway). Think about what other time-and task-saving changes you could make. 

Order Out of Chaos (hack + exercise)

Throw on some music and attack the clutter in a drawer, a room, or your whole house. Pick a mundane, uncomplicated task such as window cleaning, polishing metal, cleaning tech or washing up, and turn it into a concentration exercise -Repetitive movements of cleaning or dusting can loll you into a near-meditative state, the physical activity of washing up or vacuuming your carpets can change your chemistry and reduce anxiety. Even if it doesn't work, you’ll be rewarded with a cleaner space and more soothing surroundings when you’re done.

Motivation -Weighting memory with personal interest - 'use value' (hack + exercise)

Memory retention improves with increased motivation. This is partly due to an increase in the intensity of perception, and motivation is an important factor. If an action, object or knowledge can clearly be seen to be of use, then motivation increases. A perception that is irrelevant to our survival, or whose use is obscure, won't generate much interest and so will not be easily remembered.

In setting up material to be memorized, it helps to make its 'use value' clear; i.e., understanding what practical use the information can be put to.

This seems an obvious point and yet in much common academic work the reasons WHY it is useful to learn the facts presented, and how they are

connected to our real lives in the real world are simply not given.

Find these associations for yourself, taking responsibility for your own learning. If something genuinely cannot be seen as useful to real life in

any way, you probably shouldn't be learning it.

Remember, fiction and fantasy are also useful to real life!

NB. Artificial motivation via use value may also be generated by coercion, by deceit using absolutely false or fictitious reasons of use, or by

strongly associating a 'useless' fact or object with one that is more useful (one of the most common strategies in advertising) but this is not to be

advised for aiding memory unless your need is dire, as it creates incongruent association that you'll then have to work on getting rid of.

Mission Possible (hack + exercise)

Copy this list below or print it, leaving a gap between the lines:

• Get in touch with a friend that you haven’t seen for a while.

• Watch a funny television programme or film.

• Exercise physically for about five minutes.

• Cut your television viewing by half this week.

• Go somewhere new -A concert, movie, unusual place, museum, library, forest or strange restaurant.

• Start a new hobby, join an online or offline social group, or learn a new skill.

• Go for a 20 minute walk next time it's sunny.

• Spend ten minutes listening to relaxing or uplifting music

• Take a luxurious hot bath

• Stop watching and reading the news this week.

Take your copy of this list and cut it up so that each suggestion is a strip of paper, fold up the strips and put them inside a hat or a (clean) sock.

Once a week, pull one out at random. Your mission is to complete the request as best as you are able. Note which suggestions you had problems with and consider why. Return the paper to the hat if you fail the mission, if you succeed, throw it away.

Finally, write or print one more suggestion and add it to the hat. Make it something reasonably simple like the others. Things that you keep forgetting to do could be good choices.

Your overall mission is to empty the hat.

Include a 'mission' in your ontology (hack & exercise)

Perhaps the single most motivating factor is the sense that you’re fulfilling a greater purpose. Whatever you are doing in everyday life, keeping in mind how your interactions are part of 'the bigger picture' always helps motivation. Even if your mission is something straightforward like "I'm fully developing my intelligence" or "I'm following the path of entelechy", having that mission statement written down and viewable somewhere you regularly are, will focus your determination and strengthen your sense of purpose.

Make your mission your primary goal.

Think forward: Prepare for 'the next episode'

If you take a few minutes just before sleeping and create a list for yourself of things you want to accomplish the following day, you will be able to organize your time better and allow time for everything that needs to be done. In the creation of your list, be sure to place emphasis on the things that NEED to be done as well as the things that you want to do, and make a point of portraying the 'big picture', ie, how this particular episode fits in to the whole of your situation.

An important part of personal growth is achieving or moving toward mastery. Ask yourself, as you start a new episode (project or task or anything else), “What things am I going to learn from doing this?” This will put you in a mastery frame of mind so that you’re aware of the learning you’re doing as you move through your various episodes.

Think back: about the concepts that have motivated you in the past

and try to incorporate those into your day. If something motivated you once before to get things done, chances are it will still provide that same motivation, use that to help yourself stay motivated and focused on completing the task at hand.

Reporting for duty

Creating a list is a wonderful start, but it is only a list of ideas. When you wake up and start your day, you must actually look at your list and use it in the planning of your day. Be sure to focus on getting the most difficult tasks done or the most difficult issues dealt with, in stages if necessary, but be sure for your health to include tasks that are enjoyable to do.

Think about what sort of things make you eager to get out of bed in the morning, and keen to stay up late at night. When you get out of bed

eager to tackle the challenges of the day, and lay awake at night dreaming up new challenges, new projects, and new directions to take your life

in, motivation comes pretty easily!

Procrastination comes not from the nature of a task but from your relationship with it. Change the actual language you use to talk about what you

are doing, emphasizing why you choose to work on a task or project. Tasks that you choose to do rarely suffer from motivation problems

Don't allow yourself to get distracted.

If you know that having the TV on while you try to get something done will only draw you to watch it, determine to keep it turned off. If you never allow yourself a distraction, it can no longer be a distraction. Avoid any type of thing that will throw you off track. Your mission is to stay with your list until everything on it is complete; don't allow anything to get in the way of that unless YOU choose that it should.

If you're tempted to do something that's not on your list, think about whether or not this will help you accomplish your goals, then decide if it's still a worthwhile activity.

Review your progress and assess yourself.

Seeing yourself succeed in real terms encourages tenacity. Assess your own progress regularly and keep records.

Treat yourself for accomplished tasks.

When you complete something, be sure to reward yourself for it. Anything from a short nap to a fresh coffee can be a reward. Get creative in the things that you can do to reward yourself for staying motivated. When every tea break is read by the unconscious as a reward, the unconscious starts to get much more pleased with itself and our self esteem provides ongoing motivation. Take pride in the fact that you stayed motivated and accomplished your list. Then start on your list for tomorrow.

Spatial Orientation Test

http://spatiallearning.org/resource-info/Spatial_Ability_Tests/PTSOT.pdf

View Test

http://spatiallearning.org/resource-info/Spatial_Ability_Tests/guay-lippa.pdf

Find out if you have a sensory orientation bias (test + exercise)

Nobody is totally left- or right-handed, but most people have a dominant hand. The degree of dominance for different tasks varies and will tell you about the degree of density of the sensorimotor networks associated with each hand. These exercises will show you the degree of dominance.

1. Screw up three balls of A4 paper and make a 'target' on the floor [masking tape on carpet is great] with an inner square of about a foot [30cm]. Sit opposite your target, about 12 feet away. Try and land the paper balls in the target square, first throwing with one hand, then the other. Measure how close each ball got after the throw and note which hand did best.

2. Using a stopwatch, measure how long it takes you to write out the alphabet with one hand and then the other.

3. Get some lined paper. Draw a horizontal line between two of the lines all the way across the page, first with one hand, then the other. Count how often your line touched the sides for each hand.

4. Get a pair of tweezers, a box of matches and a stopwatch. Measure how long it takes you to remove all the matches from the box one at a time with the tweezers, using first one hand and then the other.

5. Now measure how long it takes you to get them back in, by the same method.

Now you can calculate your sensory orientation. Which hand won, overall?

If they were both about the same, you can ignore the 'sensory orientation & balance' exercises in the section below. If you found you had a strongly dominant hand, you should do them.

Exercises for sensory orientation and balance (to improve congruent association of sensorimotor & spatial networks)

You need to concentrate on the hand that GOT THE LOWEST SCORES in the hacks section tests above.

1. For an ongoing 'balancing' exercise for networks 1 & 2, use your non-dominant hand to write out a simple sentence of your choosing [between ten and fifteen words is best] once a day. Time it. When your non-dominant hand is as fast as your dominant hand, just practise this exercise once or twice a week.

2. This is an exercise that can strengthen neural connections and even create new ones.

Switch the hand you are using to control the computer mouse or track pad. Use the hand you normally do NOT use.

What do you notice?

Does your brain assume that directions are 'the other way round'?

Is it harder to be precise and accurate with your motions?

Do you feel like you did when you were first learning to tie shoelaces?

If you are feeling uncomfortable and awkward don’t worry, your brain is learning a new skill.

Try other neural building and strengthening exercises with everyday movements. Use your opposite hand to brush your teeth, dial the phone or operate the TV remote. Try drawing simple shapes (eg square, triangle, circle), letters of the alphabet, and numbers with the non-dominant hand.

3. Engage different senses

Try to include one or more of your senses in an everyday task

Get dressed/undressed with your eyes closed (don't do this one in the office).

Share a meal with a friend and use only visual cues to communicate. No talking. -Do you find you make eye contact more?

4. Combine two senses:

Listen to music and smell flowers, perfume or incense

Listen to the rain and tap your fingers

Watch clouds and play with modeling clay at the same time

5. Break routines:

Go to a regular destination by a new route

Eat with your 'opposite' hand

Get your food from somewhere different

6. Close your eyes. Now, with eyes completely shut, use your other senses to hone in on a specific familiar object. Whether it's the front door, the coffee pot or your shoes, use only your other senses to find your way to it. By facilitating spatial memory, sense of smell and touch, the brain is automatically associating nerve pathways and allowing cells that fire together to wire together.

7. Break the Regimen. Change your daily routine by simply adding or subtracting components from usual activities. A good example of this would be to have a family member or friend accompany you while you work. Or better still, do something you normally wouldn't do - e.g., go to the park instead of the mall; walking somewhere as opposed to driving there.

2.6 Observation

Estimating Dimensions (exercise)

a) At home, every time you go into a new room estimate the dimensions by eye. Note these down and then measure them with a pocket tape. How many rooms do you have to enter before you are accurate within one foot / 30cm?

b) Spend five minutes going around your home estimating the dimensions of furniture and then checking it with a pocket tape. Continue daily for ten days, rest and assess your improvement. Continue in periods of five or ten days until you can guess dimensions including diameters within one inch /2cm.

c) Cut various random lengths from a ball of string. Each length is let fall on a separate part of the floor. Guess the lengths and check against a ruler. Take five minutes and continue daily for ten days or until required accuracy is attained.

Zoom in (exercise)

Choose a small familiar object from your domestic surroundings that possesses detail. A matchbox, clock, radio, ornament, key, postcard, brush, shoe, book, plant, mug, cushion, lamp, pencil, painting, all will do. Begin to observe it very closely. The exercise should last a definite time. Ten minutes is a good timespan. If you cannot concentrate on one item for this long, you may find that drawing the object is a good aid. Don't worry if you can't 'draw a likeness'.

Spot the Difference Games

http://www.differencegames.org

http://www.allstarpuzzles.com/spotdiff/index.html

http://www.roundgames.com/onlinegame/Spot+the+Differences

Just for fun: "Change blindness"

You can experience change blindness by watching "flicker images". These consist of two consecutive images that differ only in one key feature -

two people who swap heads, say. If the images are flashed up in quick succession with a brief blank screen between them, most people take an

astonishingly long time to spot the difference. See demos at: www.psych.ubc.ca/~rensink/flicker/download

We also usually fail to detect gradual changes to a static scene, such as the addition of a large building. See demos at

http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/demos.html and http://nivea.psycho.univ-paris5.fr/Slow%20changes%20bis/intro.html

A similar phenomenon is motion-induced blindness, in which concentrating on a moving pattern causes what should be very prominent static

objects - such as bright yellow dots - to disappear. See demos at http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ebs265/demos/MIB-percScotoma.html