Games like Connections require players to be flexible in how they access information in semantic memory in order to find new or remote associations between words.
(New York Times)
Tangram is accessible yet challenging, and an excellent educational tool. It’s still used in schools today to help illustrate mathematical concepts and develop mathematical thinking skills.
There are 2,315 five-letter words in Wordle’s dictionary.
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Whether you want to win with as few guesses as possible, or you just want to figure out the right word before running out of turns, a scholar offers some tips.
Wordle is the latest word game to captivate millions.
(Shutterstock)
Like a Scrabble habit, a passion for Wordle isn’t likely to make you smarter or ward off brain aging. But it may give you a daily dose of complex cognition combined with social interaction.
Researchers tried several times to have the document declassified, including in 1992, 2004 and 2016. It was initially written to help American NSA agents crack difficult coded messages.
Scrambling it is much easier than solving it. But it still involves some fascinating questions, such as the number of random moves needed to consider the cube truly messed up.
It gets easier with practice.
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Despite its huge complexity, your brain directs its neural traffic in relatively straightforward ways when approaching cognitively demanding tasks such as puzzles.
Watching how people play a game against a computer opponent can help identify how humans use – or don’t use – game theory principles to make decisions.
Mapping connections at your next shindig.
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Let’s say you want the perfect mix of friends and strangers at your next party. Mathematicians have been working on a version of this problem for nearly a century, and the answer is complicated.