Older Scrabble players’ brains can outperform college kids

[Julie]

FROM TORONTO STAR
August 24, 2011
Comments on this story (0)

LESLEY CIARULA TAYLOR

Scrabble players’ brains are much q-u-i-c-k-e-r. (72 points. At least.)

A University of Calgary study found the well-trained brains of competitive Scrabble players in their mid-50s could outperform college kids at their cognitive peak.

They recognize words faster, vertically and horizontally, and can weed out nonsense words from real words 20 per cent faster, the study found.

“This pushes the limits” of our understanding of how older brains work, said Penny Pexman of the Department of Psychology.

“That’s the most exciting piece of this study. Even in an older adult brain, practice generates these benefits. It’s not too late to train our older brain.”

Pexman and her team matched the very buff brains of competitive Scrabble players, most of them in their mid-50s, against UCalgary undergrads and also against non-Scrabble playing older adults.

Among the surprises, said Pexman, were the Scrabble experts’ ability to spot real and phony words even without context, which other people tend to rely on to figure out meaning.

“Certainly we thought the Scrabble players would be more efficient. They have a big mental dictionary. But they were very quick at distinguishing real words and non-words. They didn’t care what the word meant; they could recognize a real word.”

Researchers now want to run brain scans on competitive Scrabble players. It’s Pexman’s hunch that the visual word formation area of the brain will be different.

“The surprise is we have built a whole literature of how word recognition happens. The assumption is undergraduates represent the end point. This competitive Scrabble experience has changed that,” said Pexman.

“They look better than the undergraduates. Their brains are just as fast and more accurate.”

The implication, said Pexman, is that “any kind of mental skill will benefit your brain. Although we measured the extremes, my hunch is the everyday person could also see benefits.

“Even if you are a 56-year-old woman and you always wanted to learn French, you can do it.”

[mars]

Hi Julie

FROM TORONTO STAR

A University of Calgary study found the well-trained brains of competitive Scrabble players in their mid-50s could outperform college kids at their cognitive peak..................................................

“Even if you are a 56-year-old woman and you always wanted to learn French, you can do it.”

Now I know why my French is so bad, I didn't play enough scrabble when going to school. But as an ageing adult, I found the answer without scrabble -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Re74YnqhM

cheers

Mars

[Julie]

[archangle]

This sounds to me like someone just proved that only smart people become 50 year old competitive Scrabble players.

Is the next study going to show that professional basketball players are better at reaching items on high shelves than the average college student?

[Slinky]

My first thought, and I still hold to it, is that the 50+ year old Scrabble players were also people who liked to read a lot, whose "natural" skills lay in the field of the written word, whilst others' interests and "natural" skills may lie more in "mechanical" type things such as tearing a CPAP apart to see how it works, etc. We tend to engage in hobbies that are in our area of interest and expertise.

Hey, I might not be saying this well BUT "I" know what I mean!

[ameriken]

Instead of saying that older scrabble players have better cognitive abilities, I wonder if it should be saying that the education system over the past 20 or 30 years has declined to the point that it is no longer producing adults who can think critically.

[Slinky]

Good point, Ameriken. I've often thought along similar lines myself. I'm not even so sure they are getting as good an education in just the basics for that matter. Yet I see the loads of books the kids carry around at school and bring home and wonder what the devil? WHY? It does seem that in many areas many teachers spend more time "teaching" how to pass the tests the government has mandated than on how to actually learn the subject of that class? And from what I'm reading I'm not the only person wondering about that.

[chunkyfrog]

What ever happened to phonics?
I learned to read in kindergarten, and my younger brother learned shortly after--when he was THREE!
(--from my reading to him because he was such a PEST.)
We were both cursed/blessed with severe myopia, directing our attention to what little we could see.--(the printed page)
Note: neither of us is a genius----

[ameriken]

Good point, Ameriken. I've often thought along similar lines myself. I'm not even so sure they are getting as good an education in just the basics for that matter. Yet I see the loads of books the kids carry around at school and bring home and wonder what the devil? WHY? It does seem that in many areas many teachers spend more time "teaching" how to pass the tests the government has mandated than on how to actually learn the subject of that class? And from what I'm reading I'm not the only person wondering about that.

You're not. I often get the feeling from other parents that our public school system is more concerned about 'how kids feel' than they are about how kids succeed. Do kids not get 'left back' anymore? I think kids who have failed miserably in one grade are moving on to the next grade because we don't want them to 'feel bad about themselves'. I don't know how accurate that is, but something needs to be done about our school system.

[BlackSpinner]

Scrabble, chess and performing music keeps the brain limber and exercised. If you want to beat OSA induced brain dysfunction start playing.

Both scrabble and chess are more about pattern recognition then anything else. But scrabble enhances reading skills while chess enhances mathematical skills. They use both here in elementary schools.

[ameriken]

Scrabble, chess and performing music keeps the brain limber and exercised. If you want to beat OSA induced brain dysfunction start playing.

You know Spinner, I used to be an avid and half decent chess player until the apnea, then I totally lost the drive and interest to play. I've been putting off getting back into it. A friend of mine invited me to an online game a few weeks back but I turned him down because I'm into that 'still not ready to play' excuse. But now that you put it in the light of 'beating the dysfunction', you have raised my interest and I think I'll invite him to a game. I've been really worried about the loss of congnitive function and you're right, chess would be helpful.

Thanks for the idea....

[Emilia]

At any given moment, I have at least 5 Scrabble or Words w/Friends games going online. Between that and all the other new technology things I learn constantly, I am building new neural connections and keeping my brain young. It's a good thing

[jabman]

You're not. I often get the feeling from other parents that our public school system is more concerned about 'how kids feel' than they are about how kids succeed. Do kids not get 'left back' anymore? I think kids who have failed miserably in one grade are moving on to the next grade because we don't want them to 'feel bad about themselves'. I don't know how accurate that is, but something needs to be done about our school system.

MY daughter (who is now 19), when she was in Middle school ( junior high for those that still call it that) had a hard time reading and spelling and still dose today. But whenever she would do a report on something she would have countless spelling errors. When she did them at home or showed them to me or my wife we would make her get out the dictionary and correct her mistakes. The problem is though that her teachers were letting her get away with those mistakes saying she did not have to fix them so my daughter would argue with us saying that her teachers said she didn't have to fix them. We were Irate and confronted the teachers unfortunately it did no good and my daughter stopped showing us her reports. I still get miffed when I think about it. DAM PUBLIC SHCOOL SYSTEM!!

[ameriken]

MY daughter (who is now 19), when she was in Middle school ( junior high for those that still call it that) had a hard time reading and spelling and still dose today. But whenever she would do a report on something she would have countless spelling errors. When she did them at home or showed them to me or my wife we would make her get out the dictionary and correct her mistakes. The problem is though that her teachers were letting her get away with those mistakes saying she did not have to fix them so my daughter would argue with us saying that her teachers said she didn't have to fix them. We were Irate and confronted the teachers unfortunately it did no good and my daughter stopped showing us her reports. I still get miffed when I think about it. DAM PUBLIC SHCOOL SYSTEM!!

Yeah, p*sses me off as well. It's actually hard to believe that stuff like this goes on. Who's going to rescue her when she completes a job application that has spelling errors and the employer turns her down for that?

Not to change the subject, but this is why we need a voucher system allowing parents to take their tax money to a private school that is actually providing an education. Unfortunately, proponents of the PS system and the teacher union always manage to get those struck down. Parents need a choice when their public school is failing to educate. Unbelievable, isn't it?

[soul_power]

This study is not very good at comparing brains. It compares a group of people with a practiced skill to a group who doesn't practice the skill at all. There is some value in this comparison, but claiming their brains out preform is just ridiculous.

I'll provide an example to show how bad this study is. Take a group of college kids who actively play sudoku and a group of fifty year olds who don't pay sudoku. Now give them tests to measure brain performance using number puzzles. Who's brain do you think will 'out preform' the others now.

For a fair comparison they should use all competitive scrabble players or all non. Better yet, do both trials for a true comparison.