Normals made it to the other side 55 percent of the time, athletes 72 percent of the time. The more interesting part was why. The assumption was that physical fitness accounted for the athletes’ success. But this wasn’t what the researchers discovered. It wasn’t that the athletes were quicker or more agile. They didn’t dodge and weave through traffic better than the normal students. Instead, they could assimilate and apply incoming information with more speed and accuracy than nonathletes. Neuroscientist Art Kramer, who oversaw this work, told the New York Times: “They didn’t move faster, but
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