Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied Copyright 2007 by the American Psychological Association 2007, Vol. 13, No. 2, 79–94 1076-898X/07/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1076-898X.13.2.79 The World of Competitive Scrabble: Novice and Expert Differences in Visuospatial and Verbal Abilities Diane F. Halpern Jonathan Wai Claremont McKenna College Vanderbilt University Competitive Scrabble players spend a mean of 4.5 hr a week memorizing words from the official Scrabble dictionary. When asked if they learn word meanings when studying word lists, only 6.4% replied “always,” with the rest split between “sometimes” and “rarely or never.” Number of years of play correlated positively with expertise ratings, suggesting that expertise develops with practice. To deter- mine the effect of hours of practice (M ϭ 1,904), the authors compared experts with high-achieving college students on a battery of cognitive tests. Despite reporting that they usually memorize word lists without learning meanings, experts defined more words correctly. Reaction times on a lexical decision task (controlling for age) correlated with expertise ratings, suggesting that experts develop faster access to word identification. Experts’ superiority on visuospatial processing was found for reaction time on 1 of 3 visuospatial tests. In a study of memory for altered Scrabble boards, experts outperformed novices, with differences between high and low expertise on memory for boards with structure-deforming transformations. Expert Scrabble players showed superior performance on selected verbal and visuospa- tial tasks that correspond to abilities that are implicated in competitive play. Keywords: expertise, Scrabble, visuospatial abilities, verbal abilities, de Groot paradigm Quackle, which is an obscure word that means “to choke,” is the diagnosing (Norman, 2005) have shown not only that human name of a remarkable computer program. In November 2006, it experts have more knowledge about their field of expertise, but shook the world of competitive Scrabble by becoming the first that relevant knowledge is organized in long-term memory in ways computer program to beat a world champion player in a “best of 5” that make it more accessible when it is needed. The expert’s ability match (Read, 2007). For competitive Scrabble players, the defeat to recognize “the multiple perceptual ways that a particular feature of human intelligence by artificial intelligence is a watershed event may arise” (Norman, 2005, p. 38) when making a medical diag- comparable to the May 1997 win by IBM’s computer program nosis has direct parallels to the rapid perceptual analysis that Deep Blue in a chess match against the reigning champion Gary distinguishes experts from novices in other domains. Efficient Kasparov (Man versus Machine, 2007). Deep Blue’s advantage is pattern recognition directs a more productive search through mem- not in its strategic abilities, but in its tremendous ability to search ory. Thus, one way of conceptualizing expertise is the develop- five moves ahead (approximately 1030 positions), although it does ment of a two-step process that combines the rapid perception of not attend to all possible moves equally and it has the ability to relevant information with a focused search through memory; taken reject bad moves while considering good ones. Quackle, Deep together, these mechanisms increase the probability that an expert Blue’s newest kin in the world of artificial intelligence, is de- will make a rapid and correct diagnosis or select a more promising scribed as a crossword game artificial intelligence and analysis move relative to a novice. The efficient cognitive processes that tool that can be configured to play and analyze crossword games underlie expertise are acquired through a costly investment of time with any board layout. As computer programs gain expertise that and effortful practice. In Ericsson and Smith’s (1991) review of can surpass even the best human experts, there is renewed attention expertise, they describe the making of an expert as taking “a to research that examines the origins and maintenance of expertise decade of intensive preparation” (p. 7) in sports, the arts, or the in a variety of areas. sciences. Studies of expertise in fields as diverse as chess (Charness, Although expertise has been studied in many domains of knowl- 1991), physics (Chi, Feltovich, & Glaser, 1981), and medical edge, psychologists have had a long-standing interest in chess, using it to understand the development of expertise and skill (Chase & Simon, 1973; de Groot, 1946, 1965). The game of chess Diane F. Halpern, Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children, has been called the “drosophila of psychology” because of its Claremont McKenna College; Jonathan Wai, Department of Psychology frequent use as a paradigm to understand how people think and and Human Development, Vanderbilt University. remember (Didierjean, Ferrari, & Marmeche, 2004, p. 771). Re- We thank Gabriel Cook at Claremont McKenna College for helpful searchers have looked to chess for insights into the workings of comments on a draft of this article; Sherylle Tan, T. J. Devine, Clayton Stephenson, and Jonathan Strahl for assistance with data collection; and memory and its relation to expertise, asking questions such as John Van Pelt for sharing his knowledge and Scrabble expertise with us. whether the ability to remember the position of pieces on chess Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Diane F. boards is related to a player’s level of skill (Chabris & Hearst, Halpern, Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children, 850 Columbia 2003; Charness, 1991; Van Der Maas & Wagenmakers, 2005). Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711. E-mail: [email protected] Chess has also been used to investigate more sophisticated ques- 79 80 HALPERN AND WAI tions about cognition and performance, such as “What abilities are play) takes home $25,000; the top prize for Division 2 is $4,000; necessary to perform at the very highest levels?” and “What is it for Division 3 the top prize is $2,500; and for Divisions 4, 5, and that makes a grandmaster so different from a master or a novice?” 6 it is $1,500 (Arneson, 2006). The ability to play at a master’s level in chess, for example, takes Competitive Scrabble differs from casual or living-room thousands of hours of deliberate practice, which alters the under- Scrabble (i.e., the rules used in casual play are different from lying representation of the problem space. It is during the many those used in competitive tournament play) in several critical hours of practice that perceptual structures are transformed from ways. In competitive Scrabble, each player has a total of 25 min discrete, small packets of knowledge to larger chunks of meaning- of play. If players go over time, 10 points are deducted from ful information in long-term memory, which allows the expert their total score for each minute (or part of a minute) by which chess player to rapidly recognize and retrieve larger quantities of they have exceeded their allotted 25 min (Alexander, 2006). information as they are needed (Chase & Simon, 1973). Chess has With severe point penalties for any player going over the total been described as “the kings’ game of choice because ‘in this game time allowed, each play must proceed as quickly as possible, skill always succeeds against ignorance’” (Fatsis, 2001, p. 22). allowing only seconds for many rounds. The number of rounds Although there have been many studies utilizing the ancient and varies from game to game because the game ends when all of venerable game of chess as a framework for understanding the the letters are exhausted. An average game will take 12 to 15 human mind, there have been relatively few studies that have plays per player, which is less than 2 min per play. Thus, speed examined other cognitively demanding games. There have been is critical to successful competitive play. For expert players, the studies of the game of Go (Masunaga & Horn, 2001), video games game requires the simultaneous interplay of verbal, visuospa- (Sims & Mayer, 2002; Vandeventer & White, 2002), and card tial, and mathematical abilities under speeded conditions. There games such as blackjack (Gaboury, Ladouceue, Beauvais, & Ge- are no other games that require the simultaneous, rapid use of nevieve, 1988), but psychologists have not yet branched out to all of these abilities. study the wider variety of games that people play. In parallel to questions about chess and these other games that have been studied The Background of Scrabble to a lesser extent, we were interested in understanding the abilities that are necessary for games that require the use of language and Alfred Mosher Butts, an unemployed architect who enjoyed the alphabet. In an attempt to bridge this gap in the literature, we anagrams and crosswords, is the generally acknowledged father of chose to closely examine the game of Scrabble. There have been Scrabble (Edley & Williams, 2001). Unlike older games, such as no other cognitive analyses of expert and novice Scrabble players. chess, Go, or backgammon, Scrabble is owned by a game company (Hasbro, Inc.) and therefore cannot be copied or mentioned with- The Game of Scrabble out its trademark. The chessboard has 64 squares and includes 32 pieces, of which 6 have different functions. In comparison, Scrab- Scrabble has unique game characteristics that should be of ble has 225 squares and 100 tiles, of which each of the 26 letters interest to psychologists because they involve three major cogni- of the alphabet is represented in direct proportion to its frequency tive abilities that are integral for successful play: (a) verbal ability in words in the English language. Letters are assigned point values in the form of word fluency, because the game requires the rapid according to this framework. For example, the letter z is worth 10 retrieval of appropriate words from memory; (b) visuospatial abil- points and shows up only once, whereas the letters a and i are each ity, because the spatial layout of words and letters on particular valued at 1 point and show up nine times apiece.