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Competitive Scrabble players are pushing brain boundaries, a new study shows.
A new study confirms what Scrabble players have long suspected: We really are smarter than the rest of you.
Researchers at the University of Calgary have discovered that competitive Scrabble players are able to increase visual word recognition -- the ability to read individual words -- well into adulthood.
“Visual word recognition is a difficult skill to master, and it develops from childhood through adulthood,” study author Ian Hargreaves, a graduate student from the University of Calgary, wrote in an e-mail. “Most of the previous research on word recognition has used adulthood (essentially, undergraduate students, as these are the participants in most research studies) as the model for the end-point of development.”
“Our study helps shine some light on how even in adulthood, visual word recognition is flexible, and can be modified with dedicated training.”
In one of the study’s tasks, research participants were presented with a series of words, oriented both vertically and horizontally. Subject participants were asked to guess which words were valid words, with their responses timed.
Other tasks included creating anagrams (A Manic’s Errant Gag?) and creating words beginning with a certain letter.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Scrabble players bested the control group in every category related to Scrabble. Hargreaves noted that his group took great pains to make Scrabble experience the independent variable, accounting for a wide variety of factors including age, vocabulary, exposure to printed materials and speed of perceptual processing.
The findings are notable because little research has been done into progress in visual word recognition past early adulthood. (Most studies are completed using the most available of test subjects: undergrads.)
The game of Scrabble, it appears, can actively improve word recognition in an adult mind. Hargreaves observed study participants of adult ages showing extraordinarily intellectual dexterity in the categories tested.
“I think that it's safe to say that there is plenty of evidence showing that exercising yourself, whether physically or mentally, can carry positive benefits,” Hargreaves added. “What these results suggest is that with dedicated practice, even seemingly basic skills (like deciding if something is a real word or not) can be shaped by experience.”
Hargreaves doesn’t necessarily believe this super-intelligence can be passed on to crossword aficionados and players of Words With Friends.
“The extent to which these Scrabble-specific skills transfer to other areas of reading and memory is something that we hope to continue investigating,” Hargreaves said.
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Leave a Comment:
I disagree with the findings of this study. I agree that there is a correlation, but would it not be worth considering that those people who have this ability would be more likely to play Scrabble?
Diz-- That's a really good point, and I posed that exact question to the researcher. Here is his response:
"The problem of preexisting group differences is always on our minds when we design a study that compares different groups of people. Since we needed to be able to emphasize that the differences between groups are primarily driven by SCRABBLE experience, we made sure that our non-competitive control group was matched with our competitive group on a number of factors (age, vocabulary, exposure to print, speed of perceptual processing). What we observed on these measures, is that the groups were not significantly different on most factors, but they did differ on measures that seem to be related to SCRABBLE experience. For example, our competitive SCRABBLE group were clearly better at solving anagrams, and if given a letter, were much better at listing a large number of words that begin with that letter.
With these groups differences controlled, we can be reasonably confident that competitive SCRABBLE experience underlies the effects in word recognition, but there could always be some additional variable that we haven't considered."
The odd thing is that the board they are showing has at least one"word" that is not a word, at least not in any english language on-line dictionary I have found.
there's probably a man waiting for you in aruba...have fun...
Hm js, now that you mention it there are a couple of words that are unfamiliar to me and I am a fair scrabble player.
I think another factor is the speed and amount that one reads. Speed is also a factor in reading enjoyment. They feed off one another, the faster you read the more you read and the more you read, the faster you get.
Sooo..............smell me!
Hmmm I am absolutely certain a scrabble player cannot solve a 4 x 4 Rubik cube in 30 minutes.
Intelligence is a funny thing. I worked for a fellow some time back who truly had a photographic memory. I am incredibly smart he would tell everyone, and sure enough he could parot back every detail. Come common sense or ability to solve a problem not in his memory? Well, I figured that being the case my computer is smarter than I am too. My memory sucks, but I can solve extremely difficult problems.
My son. He has Autism, which is both a curse and a blessing. He reads books and sees it as a movie playing in his vision, complete with characters, scenery etc. He writes with the same ability to put those images characters etc into words that convey the same to others. So clearly since I cannot do this he is far more intelligent than I am, even though he has trouble solving simple problems in which case...
Well, point is intelligence is all sorts of things and IMO common sense is the closest thing to true intelligence (as opposed to training or memorization) I know of.
It's not surprising that Scrabble players exhibit enhanced "visual word recognition"--but does that narrow and limited skill mean that Scrabble players are necessarily "smarter" than the rest? The article's thesis doesn't make sense to me.
While I agree with the fact that scrabble players are probably smarter than non-scrabble players, I don't think this thesis is in any way scientific. It would be like stating "Research shows that models are more attractive than the rest of us". Of course. Attractiveness is what we expect from a model, ergo: attractive people are more likely to be models than plain or unattractive people...they are more likely to go into that field. It would be no scientific breakthrough to prove this with research and control groups and what-have-you. Intelligent people are more likely to play scrabble than those of lower intelligence; someone who is not good at word recognition, spelling, anagrams, etc. would not have any fun playing scrabble and therefore would not be interested in it. It doesn't take a research grant and hundreds of hours to reach this conclusion - it's common sense.
Amazingly, my husband, whose first language is an Asian dialect with few or no cognates in English, blurts out answers when Wheel of Fortune is on TV, even though he reads aloud haltingly in English. There is certainly some distinct skill or skill set that contributes to this ability. No, it doesn't necessarily make someone "smarter," but perhaps specially skilled in a narrower sense. I, myself, although I have a degree in language, win far more often at Jeopardy!
You observation/evaluation is very much spot on. Scrabble players are much smarter. We are extremely smart, witty, and we are also very much detective-like, and can solve tough questions, and handle tough situations. Hurray !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for my Scrabble buddies of the world. Praise the LORD! Also one last notation: you are very smart to realize that Scrabble players are smartttt.
My goodness, no self-esteem problems there, are there? And yes, Mrs. Robinson, I like to play Scrabble, too, so this isn't a snipe or sour grapes.
Very stupid. People who do anything a lot are smarter because they do more of it than those who do not? How about a study that finds that people who sing a lot are smarter because they sing better than those who do not? How about a study of those who belch constantly who are a lot smarter than those who do not belch frequently (as measured by the noise level of their belches)?
I can do cryptograms all day long but I can't do a crossword very well. I like deductive thinking and finding out how things work more than putting letters together on a board. Board games are boring to me. Studies on groups of people are based on results and proof of a statement because of MONEY. Anyone can find the results they want because they ask the wrong questions. In this study, they are using people that like to play their scrabble games. My answer to this is ----------Chry py
Whats new here ? The brain is like anything else in the body, the more you use it, the stronger it becomes. If your reading a book, or using imagination to create words, your exercising your noodle. Glad they found out something that we already knew.
So, do scrabble players decide to play scrabble because they are smart or do smart people decide to take up scrabble. I don't think playing scrabble increases ones IQ...does it? Maybe chess players would like to expound.
Isn't it a possibility that people who are drawn frequently to scrabble as entertainment, are often, not only good at it but find "words" enjoyable, therefore sparking the brain with pleasurable endorphins? Just as people who read frequently get better at reading, once our brain learns to catagorize letters and seek patterns, it becomes easier, which could fall into a positive feedback system. If our brains get a "rush" from it, our subconscious minds will seek more pleasure, thereby craving more words....heh, maybe we can get drug addicts addicted to words instead! A-D-D-I-C-T-I-O-N what's my score??
In today's society,smart alecs!
unscrabble this...bamao uckss...
aboma (south american animal)
cusks (fish food)
im a scrabble player :) and it is called anagram not unscrabble. maybe your notions are ALMOST as bad as your politics.
j---politics aside, thanks for the new (to me) words.
I love Scrabble and have played it for years....I also love Scrabble Blast. Does it have to be competitive to boost your brain? With SB, you play for highest point count that you can achieve. I always play the one bag mode...Anyone else play it?
Is there such a word as "bested"?
I think people who like language & reading & do well in their English classes enjoy Scrabble more than other people may. I think doing well at Scrabble requires a certain nimbleness of mind, & you almost have to be reasonably well-read. And if you get 2 or more language enthusiasts playing, a certain competiveness will develop, to see who can come up with a more obscure word, who can use the most letters in their words, &, yes, who can score highest. And there's a certain satisfaction in building on someone else's word. It's a contest to see who is cleverest, which is not necessarily smartest. After all, you can't choose your tiles, but you can make the best of what you get.
the best of the best scrabble players are almost always math minds
LOL I'll disagree with you there. I've always been a very good Scrabble player started really young. Can barely add without using my fingers.
Well j, I am a fair scrabble player, physics major, math minor. My feeling is that they are not connected but then, maybe. I can't really find a connection. I am decent at crossword puzzles and can usually get the sudokus. I think scrabble players just enjoy puzzles, I will work at almost any one I come across but smart, nah, moron is likely closer.
Many years ago there was a magazine named "Games" and from it "The four star Puzzler". I loved them, they were a real challenge, I was a subscriber when they went under, shame.
Hmmm, I'm thinking that people with better "visual word recognition" are the ones drawn to Scrabble in the first place, as they excel at it... and tho doing something will tend to make you better at it, it's not necessarily the other way around.... just like people with extraordinary physical abilities are drawn to sports, and people who have artistic talent are drawn to painting, sculpting, etc... there definitely is a correlation, but I think they have the cause-effect backwards
Well fed up, my first inclination is to agree with you but then I can't sing worth a lick, yet I sing a lot of the time.
A better test would be to ask those same scrabble players the definition of the words they use, and then to use the word properly in a sentence. I play Prolific on fb, the game uses the official sowpods (scrabble) dictionary, which is recognized in almost every country but the U.S.A, and a very few others. Most players don't know the meaning of the words, only that they are recognized as such. Leads me to believe that hardcore Scrabble (and Prolific) competitors simply see words as patterns, nothing more.
And intelligence is variable, except...I know many people with 'book' learning...they retain information readily, however, they lack the ability to use that 'information' in a practical way. They are, in effect, trivia containers, nothing more. I was taught in school that 'intelligence' is the ability to apply learned knowledge in a useful or creative manner. Simply retaining trivia, is, well not a measure of intelligence.