Ces dernières semaines, un puzzle de mots basé sur le Web appelé Wordle est devenu une distraction quotidienne populaire. Soudain, des millions de personnes se concentrent sur leur vocabulaire de mots de cinq lettres et sont nouvellement conscientes de concepts tels que la fréquence et la position des lettres alors qu'elles élaborent des stratégies sur les meilleurs mots d'ouverture et des solutions plus rapides.

Pour ces personnes, Wordle est captivant. Des recherches antérieures peuvent nous aider à comprendre comment notre cerveau réagit aux jeux de mots et pourquoi nous les aimons.

Wordle est un puzzle solo qui combine des éléments de plusieurs jeux, dont Scrabble et Battleship. Mes collègues et moi avons étudié le Scrabble pour comprendre comment le langage est traité dans le cerveau et comment ce traitement change avec l'expérience.

Voici votre cerveau sur Scrabble

Les joueurs compétitifs de Scrabble sont des personnes qui passent beaucoup de temps à jouer au Scrabble, à participer à des tournois de Scrabble, à mémoriser des listes de mots et à pratiquer l'anagramme - mélanger des ensembles de lettres pour créer des mots différents.

Tout comme les joueurs d'échecs, les joueurs compétitifs de Scrabble sont classés dans un système de classement international basé sur les résultats des tournois. Nous avons recruté des joueurs compétitifs dans des tournois et des clubs de Scrabble et leur avons donné une série de tâches pour comprendre comment toute cette pratique et ce jeu de Scrabble modifient leurs processus mentaux.

Dans notre première étude, nous avons constaté que les joueurs de Scrabble compétitifs reconnaissaient les mots plus rapidement que ceux qui ne jouaient pas régulièrement au Scrabble, en particulier lorsque les mots étaient présentés verticalement. La présentation verticale des mots est inhabituelle en anglais écrit mais courante au Scrabble, et les joueurs compétitifs sont très bons pour reconnaître les mots verticaux.

Nous avons également constaté que les joueurs de Scrabble reconnaissaient rapidement les mots sans traiter entièrement le sens des mots. C'est probablement parce qu'au Scrabble, vous devez savoir si différentes chaînes de lettres constituent des jeux légaux, mais vous n'avez pas réellement besoin de savoir ce que signifient ces mots.

We also used brain imaging to study how all those years of intensive practice might have altered brain processes for language in competitive Scrabble players.

We found that when recognizing words and making simple decisions about them, competitive Scrabble players used a different network of brain areas than those who didn't play Scrabble competitively. Scrabble experts made use of brain regions not typically associated with word meaning retrieval, but rather those associated with visual memory and perception.

A Scrabble habit makes you … good at Scrabble

We wondered whether the effects of Scrabble practice that we observed in competitive players have benefits beyond Scrabble. Does playing lots of Scrabble make you good at anything else? The answer seems to be no.

We investigated that question by giving competitive Scrabble players and a group of Scrabble non-experts a task that was similar to Scrabble but used symbols instead of letters. In that task, Scrabble players were no better than anyone else in terms of their processing speed or accuracy.

We also investigated whether Scrabble expertise protects players from the effects of brain aging. Again, the answer seems to be no. Older Scrabble players still show the normal effects of aging, like slower processing speed.

In both Scrabble and Wordle, players need to search their word memory based on letters, shuffle letters across positions to find solutions or plays—the meaning of the words is irrelevant. Because of these similarities, many of the brain processes involved in Scrabble are probably also engaged when solving Wordles.

Our research with people who are not Scrabble experts shows that mental processes start to change quite quickly when people are asked to take on a new word recognition task. That means it's very likely your Wordle habit has already caused slight changes in the brain processes you use to solve the puzzles.

Those changes help you to play Wordle, but probably don't help you with anything else.

Why do some people love puzzles?

Wordle has become a habit for millions, but for others it's not appealing.

There are probably lots of reasons for this, but one explanation could be differences in what people find motivating. Some people enjoy puzzles and thinking challenges more than others. This type of motivation is referred to as need for cognition, and people who have a high need for cognition tend to seek out mental challenges like word games and puzzles.

In Scrabble, there are usually multiple possible plays that could advance the game, but Worldles have a single right answer. With only one Wordle released per day, everyone is solving the same puzzle. The online game's sharing options also allow us to share our results with others without giving the answer away.

That means Wordle is also creating an opportunity for shared experience at a time when many people are feeling disconnected from others. A Wordle habit is not 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—and that can be a very good thing.