Want to know how to make more money? How to get a better night's sleep? And how to improve your memory in less than a minute? In this brand-new season of Brain Games, we're going to take it off the screen and into the streets, to give you a real-world tune-up for your brain. Host Jason Silva (@JasonSilva) will be taking you behind the scenes of mind-blowing hidden camera social experiments that reveal startling truths about your own brain and the brains of people around you.
Season four of Emmy-nominated series
BRAIN GAMES premieres Monday, Jan. 19 at 9 p.m. ET/PT with back-to-back new episodes. Our hidden cameras capture all the hilarious and shocking results of the interactive experiments, and we'll give viewers real-world takeaways to use in their everyday lives. This season, watching
BRAIN GAMES might make you richer, it might help you sleep better, it might help you remember better - and it might even make you smarter.
BRAIN GAMES airs internationally on
National Geographic Channel (NGC) in 171 countries and 45 languages. For more information, visit natgeotv.com/braingames and follow us on Twitter at @NGC_PR.
Brain Games will look at why we behave the way we do - whether making everyday decisions, or in more involved attempts to maximize the full potential of our gray matter. Through interactive experiments and hidden camera games, follow along as we trick your brain into buying a $20 bill for more than 20 bucks, into "seeing ghosts" and into thinking an expensive meal tastes better than a cheaper one. Also, explore the
Science behind why many of us forget something when walking from one room to the next, and gain a new understanding of how your brain sees money and why it gets excited when you think you're getting a deal.
Check out the new
BRAIN GAMES trailer and the magic behind the scenes.
This season,
BRAIN GAMES will be weighing your morality at the New York State Supreme Court; will show you that sometimes fiction can masquerade as fact by testing your knowledge of U.S. history at Independence Plaza in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; will find out if there are limits to your imagination at
Cirque du Soleil's Zarkana in Las Vegas, Nevada; and will explore your fears of the supernatural at the abandoned Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. Pay attention as NGC takes you on an exhilarating ride through the complexities of your gray matter.
About Jason Silva
A part-time filmmaker, Silva's series of "Shots of Awe" - noncommercial micro-documentaries exploring the co-evolution of human and technology - continue to inspire millions of viewers. His hugely successful video "Existential Bummer" went viral, with more than 2.5 million views to date.
Upcoming Episodes of
BRAIN GAMES Include:
BRAIN GAMES: COMMON SENSE Premieres Monday, Jan. 19 at 9 PM ET/PT From knowing when to cross the street to what to wear to work and to avoiding hot stoves, your brain is constantly making judgment calls that you likely take for granted. This basic ability to perceive the world in a way similar to most people, and to think and behave in a reasonable way, is chalked up to something we call common sense - but just how common is it? Illusionist Eric Leclerc (@Leclericshow) reveals how your basic beliefs and perceptions can lead you astray. Then we'll put gravity - and your assumptions - to the test by dropping a watermelon and an egg from four stories up! We'll employ the "Wisdom of the Crowd" by having 20 participants guess the number of gumballs contained in a giant jar. You'll learn how to harness the power of collective thinking in this sweet guessing game. Comedian Ben Bailey (@RealBenBailey) will then quiz some people on the street to see just how good their common sense actually is. Finally, kinetic artist Joseph Herscher will challenge two very different teams to build a better mousetrap.
BRAIN GAMES: LEFT VS. RIGHT Premieres Monday, Jan. 19 at 9:30 PM ET/PT In this episode, we're singling out the two halves that make up the whole brain, to discover how the two sides operate, what they really control, and whether or not one side of your brain dominates the other. We're going to put you through a series of games and experiments to find out if there's any
Science behind the notion that your left brain is more creative while the right brain is more logical. First, we'll show you an illusion of the Leaning Tower of Pisa that's sure to have your brain seeing things. Then you'll take a simple quiz designed to test if you're more right-brained or left-brained. You'll play an interactive game at home designed to test not only your logic and creativity ... but your rhyming skills, as well. Next, host Jason Silva, with some live musical accompaniment, will show you how your left and right brain can sometimes cross wires, creating some compromising body positions. Then you'll play along with our volunteers as they try to make illogical one-syllable words into a common phrase. Finally, we'll show you how hard it is to name 20 animals when the words and pictures don't match up.
BRAIN GAMES: MORALITY Premieres Monday, Jan. 26 at 9 PM ET/PT Your brain makes countless moral decisions every day ... but have you ever wondered where your morality comes from? Through a series of thought-provoking games and moral dilemmas, we'll test the strength of your moral fiber. For example, take our first game, known as the "Trolley Problem." An out-of-control train is barreling down the tracks toward four people. You can save them by pulling a lever and diverting the train to another track. There's just one problem - there's one person standing on the second track. Would you let the train hit the four people or would you pull the lever and sacrifice the one? Morality isn't always black and white. We'll test that theory in a series of interactive games including some hidden camera experiments in which everything from clothes, to beverage choices, to attitude combine to influence and sway your brain and your morals.
Brain Games is produced by National Geographic Studios (NGS) in association with Atomic Entertainment for National Geographic Channels.
Jerry Kolber is executive producer. For NGS, Pamela Caragol Wells is executive producer. For NGC, Michael Kovnat is executive producer; Tim Pastore is president, original programming and production.
National Geographic Channels
Based at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Channels US are a joint venture between National Geographic and
FOX Networks. The Channels contribute to the National Geographic Society's commitment to exploration, conservation and education with smart, innovative programming and profits that directly support its mission. Launched in January 2001,
National Geographic Channel (NGC) celebrated its fifth anniversary with the debut of NGC HD. In 2010, the wildlife and natural history cable channel
NAT GEO WILD was launched, and in 2011, the Spanish-language network Nat Geo Mundo was unveiled. The Channels have carriage with all of the nation's major cable, telco and satellite television providers, with NGC currently available in over 85 million U.S. homes. Globally,
National Geographic Channel is available in more than 440 million homes in 171 countries and 45 languages. For more information, visit www.natgeotv.com.
