Brain Games

Jersey City, NJ - Teammates reveal the phrase they have come up with through playing "Time Travel Telephone" to host Jason Silva. Time Travel Telephone – explores the evolution of spoken and written language. The object of the game is to communicate a sentence or phrase (such as “pen is mightier than the sword”) correctly through four people – with a catch. 1. The first person (Teammate A) can only use gestures and grunts, as early humans did tens of thousands of years ago. 2. The second person (Teammate B) can only use hand-drawn pictures, as our ancestors did before there was written language less than six thousand years ago. 3. The third person (Teammate C) gets to travel through time to today and can only use words to communicate. The trick is, they can use every word except the words they believe to be in the phrase they’re trying to communicate to the fourth person. 4. The fourth person (Teammate D) then reveals on a white board what they think the phrase is and we see how close they are to the original phrase/ idiom that Jason reveals on another white-board.

(photo credit: NGT/Ben Spanner)

Jersey City, NJ - Teammate A attempts to convey a phrase to Teammate B through guestures and grunts. Time Travel Telephone – explores the evolution of spoken and written language. The object of the game is to communicate a sentence or phrase (such as “pen is mightier than the sword”) correctly through four people – with a catch. 1. The first person (Teammate A) can only use gestures and grunts, as early humans did tens of thousands of years ago. 2. The second person (Teammate B) can only use hand-drawn pictures, as our ancestors did before there was written language less than six thousand years ago. 3. The third person (Teammate C) gets to travel through time to today and can only use words to communicate. The trick is, they can use every word except the words they believe to be in the phrase they’re trying to communicate to the fourth person. 4. The fourth person (Teammate D) then reveals on a white board what they think the phrase is and we see how close they are to the original phrase/ idiom that Jason reveals on another white-board.

(photo credit: NGT/Ben Spanner)

New York, NY - Host Jason Silva displays a slide with two shapes and asks volunteers, which one they think should be called Takete and which one should be called Maluma. Almost all of the volunteers said the shape on the left is Takete, explaining that it seemed to “fit” with the jagged and angular nature of the shape. Jason explains that this is due to the brain’s association of angular shapes with shaper sounds.

(photo credit: NGT/Ben Spanner)