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August 31, 2012

Strange But True!

Q. What do the smartest — or really the savviest — elite athletes do with their brains before stepping into the arena of play?

A. Like chess masters and top musicians, superstar athletes know how to turn on just those parts of the brain relevant to the task at hand, though there's much mystery in how this is done, says Nick Bascom in “Brainy Ballplayers” in Science News magazine. “That's why athletes usually thank God or their moms,” adds cognitive psychologist Sian Beilock. “They don't know what they just did so they don't know what else to say.”


 
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