Shocking Mathematical Results
W
hen it comes out that I’m a math person, the most common response from people I meet is “I was never very good at math“. After a lifetime of struggling to find the appropriate response, I finally have something positive and proactive to say: go get yourself some electroshock therapy.
According to a recent study, running a mild electric current through the brain seems to temporarily increase mathematical ability. Apparently the study involved teaching the subjects a new numeration system (could it have been octomatics?) and testing their ability to organize those symbols before and after electrical stimulation of the parietal lobe.
In addition to slightly increasing mathematical ability and potentially treating dyscalculia, there is hope that such electrical stimulation could improve other brain function, as well.
Now, how can I bring this revolutionary technique into my classroom?
1 Comment
Ahmed Gouda · November 5, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Well, I found myself doing simple math (multiplication, addition, division, and subtraction) in binary way quicker then in decimal. It could always be that the new numeration system is genuinely superior. Then again, binary is easy to do that stuff with since like…its just 1s and 0s, and the only thing that has changed is instead of not being able to go past 9, you can’t go past 1.
Then again, I’m guessing since this is a study, they had a control. So they probably compared to someone using normal math with electric shocks, or the new numeration system without electric shocks.