Anagram solution as related to adult age, anagram difficulty, and experience in solving crossword puzzles

Witte, Kenneth L.; Freund, Joel S.

doi:10.1080/13825589508256594

Cited by 9 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Not surprisingly, proficiency at solving crossword puzzles also correlates positively with skill at anagrams (Underwood et al, 1994;Witte & Freund, 1995).…”

Section: Some Theoretical Questions and Conjecturesmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Whether or not doing crossword puzzles postpones dementia, aging puzzle addicts can take some comfort in evidence that whatever skill that doing such puzzles requires appears to be relatively immune to the mental abuses of time, at least for long-term puzzle doers (Rabbitt, 1993;Witte & Freund, 1995). It appears that the experience and knowledge that comes with age more than compensate for declines in other abilities involved in the task (Hambrick et al, 1999).…”

Section: Crossword Puzzle Doing and Mental Agingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Five down, Absquatulated: Crossword puzzle clues to how the mind works

Nickerson

2011

Psychon Bull Rev

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Doing crossword puzzles is a popular pastime; no one knows how many people do them, but estimates go as high as 50 million or more in the United States alone. Success at crossword puzzles taxes several aspects of memory and cognition. The purpose of this article is to consider hints that crosswords provide and questions that they prompt regarding how the mind works. Implicated topics include word associations, lexical memory search, semantic priming, the sparseness of word space, list generation, the feeling of knowing and of not knowing, mental aging, and the crossword puzzle as a vehicle for studying cognition.

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“…Not surprisingly, proficiency at solving crossword puzzles also correlates positively with skill at anagrams (Underwood et al, 1994;Witte & Freund, 1995).…”

Section: Some Theoretical Questions and Conjecturesmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Crossword Puzzle Doing and Mental Agingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Five down, Absquatulated: Crossword puzzle clues to how the mind works

Nickerson

2011

Psychon Bull Rev

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“…These tests, obtained from Hambrick et al (1999) and Witte and Freund (1995), are briefly described below. The time limits were extended to permit H.M. to complete each test.…”

Section: Materials and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For expert crossword solvers, puzzle proficiency could be predicted by word generation from a string of letters, performance on anagrams, sensitivity to a suffix of a word, sensitivity to a pseudosuffix in a word, and vocabulary scores (Underwood et al, 1994). Witte and Freund (1995) further showed that performance on anagramsanother independent test of word retrieval skills-was positively correlated with previous crossword puzzle experience. In a more recent study, general knowledge, in addition to word retrieval skills and crossword puzzle experience, was a significant predictor of crossword puzzle proficiency (Hambrick, Salthouse, & Meinz, 1999).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We were interested in testing H.M. on these general knowledge and word retrieval skills so that we could characterize his crossword-puzzle-solving abilities. In Experiment 1, we measured several components of H.M.'s memory and cognition, using the series of tests created by Hambrick et al (1999) and Witte and Freund (1995). Here we asked the following: How does H.M. compare with age-and education-matched healthy volunteers on these predictive measures of crossword puzzle proficiency?…”

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confidence: 99%

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Puzzling Thoughts for H. M.: Can New Semantic Information Be Anchored to Old Semantic Memories?

Skotko

Kensinger²,

Locascio³

et al. 2004

Neuropsychology

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Researchers currently debate whether new semantic knowledge can be learned and retrieved despite extensive damage to medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures. The authors explored whether H.M., a patient with amnesia, could acquire new semantic information in the context of his lifelong hobby of solving crossword puzzles. First, H.M. was tested on a series of word-skills tests believed important in solving crosswords. He also completed 3 new crosswords: 1 puzzle testing pre-1953 knowledge, another testing post-1953 knowledge, and another combining the 2 by giving postoperative semantic clues for preoperative answers. From the results, the authors concluded that H.M. can acquire new semantic knowledge, at least temporarily, when he can anchor it to mental representations established preoperatively.

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Cognitive Abilities of Elite Nationally Ranked SCRABBLE and Crossword Experts

Toma

Halpern

Berger

2014

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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SummaryTheoretical models of working memory suggest that the simultaneous processing and storage of information is carried out either as separate or binded mechanisms. We explored working memory capacity and strategy in two elite groups of experts to test the separate versus binded hypotheses. Visuospatial and verbal abilities were measured in elite nationally ranked SCRABBLE and crossword experts and compared with college students matched on quantitative and verbal SAT scores, both exceeding 700 on average. SCRABBLE and crossword experts significantly outperformed college students on all cognitive measures. The crossword experts scored significantly higher on a test of analogies than SCRABBLE experts, but performance for cognitive ability tasks did not significantly differ between expert groups. The techniques and strategies used during competitive play, however, did differ significantly. Findings suggest that visuospatial and verbal working memory capacities of SCRABBLE and crossword experts are binded and occur at extraordinarily high levels. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Anagram solution as related to adult age, anagram difficulty, and experience in solving crossword puzzles

Cited by 9 publications

References 22 publications

Five down, Absquatulated: Crossword puzzle clues to how the mind works

Five down, Absquatulated: Crossword puzzle clues to how the mind works

Puzzling Thoughts for H. M.: Can New Semantic Information Be Anchored to Old Semantic Memories?

Cognitive Abilities of Elite Nationally Ranked SCRABBLE and Crossword Experts

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