Australian researchers say magnetic fields could make ordinary people capable of extraordinary mental feats.

A joint venture of the Australian National University and the University of Sydney investigated whether repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS, can improve a healthy person's ability to guess accurately the number of elements in a scene, the London Telegraph reported.

The study was published this month in the journal Perception.

Participants in the study were presented with 50 to 150 random elements on a monitor. Ten of the 12 participants improved their ability accurately to guess the number of elements immediately following TMS treatment to the left anterior temporal lobe, a skill that receded an hour later, the newspaper said.