Neuromites are incorrect beliefs about the brain that originates in simplifications or bad ‘lectures’ of scientific results and evidence. They are held … A certain basis but then distorts, adorns or reinterpret and, to hear them, we eventually believe them together. In the educational field, in continuous search for effective educational methods based on neuroscience, it is common for these neuromites to give rise to learning techniques that are used in classrooms without a scientific basis. The last findings of neurology have dismantled many of these beliefs.
We only use a small part of the brain
A very widespread myth about how the brain works is that people use only 10 % of this organ. It seems that if we know how we can stimulate our inactive parts, we can achieve more intellectual performance. «That statement is flat. Although there may be some regions that do not work in certain circumstances, the brain is almost one hundred percent active at all times, ”says José Manuel Muñoz, a researcher at the International Center for Neuroscience and Ethics (CIET).
The use of technologies such as magnetic resonance has contributed lightly and has enabled us to verify that “only when a brain injury has been suffered with serious damage, inactive parts of the brain,” says José Ramón Gago and Carme Trinidad, professors of neuroscience and authors in the education ‘Neuromites. Even when we sleep “all parts of our brains have a certain level of activity, which would be impossible to be true that we only use 10% of the brain,” they say.
Our joy in a well. “We should therefore not expect that the use of brain training tools will generate our ‘sleeping parts’ in healthy individuals or that it will be geniuses thanks to this,” explains Muñoz.
Sugar hinders attention and makes children hyperactive
It is common to hear that children who consume sugary drinks and snacks suffer loss at their level of attention and even hyperactivity. «Nothing is further from reality. There are solid studies that show that sugar has no significant effect on the behavior and intellectual performance of children, “explains the neuroscientist, although he remembers the” pernicious “consequences for the health of the abuse of sugar -containing foods.
Each person has a dominant brain half
A very widespread popular conviction is that there are people from ‘left hemisphere’ and others of ‘right’. Being creative would therefore depend on the right hemisphere and numerical operations and logic would be associated exclusively to the left. This principle would even have implications to teach: according to their dominant hemisphere, students must have more verbal and others, more visual. It’s not like that.
«It is a myth to think that some people have a mainly creative mental processing or, on the contrary, analytical, and that this also comes from a predominant functioning of the left or right hemisphere. A student does not use a cerebral hemisphere than another to learn, provided that it does not suffer a brain injury or structural change, ”says Muñoz. The truth is that the brain always works in a coordinated way.” And people, depending on the problem to be solved, will use more creative or analytical strategies, “he adds.
Listening to Mozart makes us smarter
They call it the ‘Mozart effect’: listening to music increases academic intelligence. There is a very widespread habit to expose children during their development phase of classical music. This conviction has a lot to do with the publication in 1993 in the ‘Nature’ magazine of a study by the University of California, where they presented students to a Morzart Sonate for ten minutes and submitted them for a test. They achieved a higher score than those who hadn’t done that.
«The study does not speak of the intellectual quotient at any time, it is not confirmed that this type of music increases intelligence. Only an improvement in space -temporary reasoning opportunities has been proven and, moreover, the experiment showed that the effects or benefits take only 15 minutes, ”the experts clarify. After this research, many others who have not contributed to scientific evidence came that this effect supports.
The most important phase for the brain: a maximum of 3 years
The first three years of life play a fundamental role in determining the brain skills of the future. It is a very deep -rooted idea, but not entirely exactly. Parents are afraid not to squeeze the brain development of the child to that age, thinking that it will already mark their intelligence irreversibly, so they stimulate it with all kinds of activities.
«Taking the brain development in a global way is true that there are more accelerated learning periods. But this is not mathematical. There is no specific calendar to say: ‘From 0 to 3 years, this; From 3 to 6, this other ‘. When we talk about neurudity, we should not talk about the first three years of life, but about the entire life cycle, “the specialists clarify.
