We already know playing the Challenge is the fastest and most intelligent way to improve your vocabulary. But can it make you smarter as well?Continue reading...
Can the particular words––and word combinations––on a Vocabulary List tell you whose list it is? And can you use a literature-based Vocabulary List as a fingerprint of sorts, identifying an author's identity after reading through only their list of words?Continue reading...
What makes you happy? What makes you sad? And what do any of those feelings have to do with playing the Challenge on Vocabulary.com? A whole lot, apparently, as new research points to the idea that your brain, when happier, is better able to learn.Continue reading...
Do you say, “I better write this one down, or it will disappear from my brain?” Do you count on answers to questions slipping into your brain hours after the question arises, or phone numbers sticking in your head once you've dialed them five times? If you do, that's great. You're engaging in a process called metacognition. Metacognition means ‘thinking about thinking,’ and educators going back to Piaget believe that engaging in it helps us learn.Continue reading...
Cognitive psychologist Elizabeth S. Spelke believes that language is the key to human beings' capacity to combine various forms of intelligence such that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts––an inspiring insight for anyone set on building vocabulary.Continue reading...
In an earlier post on this blog, we wrote about word knowledge limbo, citing research that shows that our brains don’t travel directly from “not knowing” a word to “knowing it.” In this post, we’ll talk about what it means when you do finally get there. What does it mean to know a word?Continue reading...
As you’re playing the Challenge, do you ever wonder why you see questions on words you have already mastered? It’s because the game is attempting to circumvent your brain’s natural process of forgetting.Continue reading...