Brain Food #1 – The Magic of Multisensory Learning

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The thing I love most about brains is that each and every brain has unique strengths and gifts. Things that some people process very easily can be extremely difficult for other people to process. To illustrate, I’m serving up a slice of “brain food” for you to chew on.

This picture contains five office buildings. The lights are on in the offices where you see the white rectangles. The lights are off in the offices where you see the black rectangles. Analyzing the pattern, which lights do you think will be “off” in the building on the far right?  You can find the answer (and the brain science behind it) below!

Spoiler Alert!  Answer Below:

Some people will “see” the answer right away. Others will find it after having a bit of processing time. And still others will be like me the first time I saw this puzzle; I just waited for the answer to be revealed by my instructor because I did not see any pattern at all. The truth is, all of you can find your way to the answer with a little bit of coaching, so here goes…

To confirm you got it right, or to figure it out if you didn’t, let’s engage more of your senses. So far, you’ve only used your eyes to look at the windows in the buildings. Take your index finger and place it on the white window in the top left corner of the building on the far left (Building #1). Move your finger toward the right, along the row of white windows, tracing them from the top to the bottom of the building. Then move your index finger to the top left corner of Building #2. Begin tracing the white windows from the top to the bottom of that building. Keep tracing the white windows in the buildings until the pattern reveals itself to you (and if it never does, send me an email and I’ll help you out!).

Brain Science: Why does this work? We use our senses to process information. The more senses we engage when processing information, the clearer the information becomes. To process and learn information effectively, people need to engage as many senses as possible!

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