Doing puzzles can be a welcome respite in times of turmoil, including ongoing and escalating global conflicts, and puzzle fans are currently hooked on Connections. It’s the latest word game from the New York Times that launched following the success of the newspaper’s Wordle game.

The premise of Connections is simple: from a grid of 16 words, find four groups of four that each have something in common. Sounds simple? It’s not. Why does this game spark so much delight and frustration among players?

Today in The Conversation Canada, Emiko Muraki from the University of Calgary and Penny Pexman of Western University discuss our semantic memory, how we recognize words and offer some tips that could improve your game.

Also today:

All the best, 

Ibrahim Daair

Culture + Society Editor
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)

NYT Connections: Tips to improve your game through the science of semantic memory

Emiko Muraki, University of Calgary; Penny Pexman, Western University

NYT’s latest game reveals how our memory works to remember words.
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James Devine, Mount Allison University

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Jason Foster, Athabasca University; Bob Barnetson, Athabasca University; Susan Cake, Athabasca University

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La Conversation Canada
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Le rêve diffère d’une culture à l’autre, et ces différences pourraient permettre de comprendre comment et pourquoi le rêve a évolué chez l’humain et chez d’autres espèces.

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