Feb 9, 2008
Brain Teaser: Words in your brain, learn as you exercise!
Do you know where words are stored in your brain…?
In your temporal lobe! (in green on this profile view of the right side of your brain).
As you know your brain has two sides (two hemispheres) connected by the corpus callosum. So you have one temporal lobe on each side of the brain.
If you are right-handed, your language is stored mostly in your left temporal lobe. If you are left-handed, you are not so lateralized and your language is stored a bit on both sides of your brain in the temporal lobes.
Words in the brain are not stored randomly. They seemed to be quite organized. Research has shown that words that are often heard together (such as salt and pepper) or words that share some meaning (such as nurse and doctor) are connected or associated in the brain. Once you hear one, the other is activated.
Here is a brain exercise whose aim is to stimulate the connections or associations between words in your temporal lobe.
In the left column you have a pair of words. Your goal is to find a third word that is connected or associated with both of these two words.
The first pair is PIANO and LOCK. The answer is KEY. The word key is connected with both the word piano and the word lock: there are KEYS on a piano and you use a KEY to lock doors.
Key is what is called a homograph: a word that has more than one meaning but is always spelled the same.
Ready to stimulate connections in your temporal lobe(s)? Enjoy! (Solutions are below. Please don’t check them until you have tried to solve all the pairs!)
1. LOCK — PIANO
2. SHIP — CARD
3. TREE — CAR
4. SCHOOL — EYE
5. PILLOW — COURT
6. RIVER — MONEY
7. BED — PAPER
8. ARMY — WATER
9. TENNIS — NOISE
10. EGYPTIAN — MOTHER
11. SMOKER — PLUMBER
— This article was written by Pascale Michelon, Ph. D., for SharpBrains.com. Dr. Michelon has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and has worked as a Research Scientist at Washington University in Saint Louis, in the Psychology Department. She conducted several research projects to understand how the brain makes use of visual information and memorizes facts. She is now an Adjunct Faculty at Washington University, and teaches Memory Workshops in numerous retirement communities in the St Louis area.
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Solutions
1. LOCK - PIANO > KEY
2. SHIP — CARD > Deck
3. TREE — CAR > Trunk
4. SCHOOL - EYE > Pupil (Exam and Private are also possible)
5. PILLOW - COURT > Case
6. RIVER — MONEY > Bank (Flow is also possible)
7. BED — PAPER > Sheet
8. ARMY — WATER > Tank
9. TENNIS — NOISE > Racket
10. EGYPTIAN — MOTHER > Mummy
11. SMOKER — PLUMBER > Pipe
I joined Carla on FISH for 4 and Jane on SLAM for 9, so a few of us are diverging together at least. Also had GREEN for tree/car, which makes sense to me; I drive a red hybrid.
For #8 — I used “standing”
For number 5: SOFT
Soft pillow and soft court?
I was thinking of “ancient” for number 10, but I guess I would annoy a good number of moms out there, including myself! Belated Happy Mother’s Day!
I love to do these little games. The shorter, the better. I got 6 and felt very dumb…
army — water: gun
pillow — court: case
Technically tennis racquet not racket I got white for tennis and noise (you wear tennis whites and Wimbledon and of course white noise). I also could not get beyond butt for plumber and smoker !!!
for #10, what if you spell Mommy correctly in your brain? — then could this be the reason it’s harder to associate the two?
I also agree brain exercises should be used more in less educated communities in order to (help) combat the educational gap that exist in America.
I wonder if their are any cultural differences when it comes to brain exercise, are other countries ( like Asia ) already implementing this idea with their children?
Hello Fatimah,
We believe every single human being can benefit. Less educated and more educated. And the research shows that is the case…no one is “too educated”.
There certainly are different approaches in different countries. We discussed this a bit with Eric Jensen
http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2008/03/12/brain-connection-eric-jensen-on-learning-and-the-brain/
However, no country is perfect. Some education systems implicitly focus on attention and memory, others on cognitive flexibility, others on abstract thinking…it will be fascinating to observe how countries incorporate findings from cognitive science into their policies to help educate citizens who can succeed and prosper in a more globalized world.
I got ‘roll’ for 7 — bed roll; roll of paper?
I got canteen for army-water, and post for bed-paper. It took me a long time to get just 5.
I got hobag for number ten.….anyone else?
For number 10 (Egyptian, Mother), I wrote Sun or Son.
Because I told myself that the Egyptians worship the sun, and the creator of the puzzle wouldn’t have written “Mother”, if the person didn’t have a child. Or else they would have written “Woman”. Aaah…
What about ‘Goose’ for no. 10? As in Egyptian Goose and Mother Goose’s rhymes? or doesn’t that count?
How about “crossing” for no. 4? I know perhaps it should be crossing “eyes” but no. 2 is “deck” with “card”.
I just thought of another — guard: school guard / eye guard.
What happens when you do this excercise in another language? For instance, I am not an English native speaker… I am using same parts of the brain / same process while doing this excercise in English?
Like others, I had Board for #2, and chain for #11 — a plumbers chain being a type of wrench that can tighten or loosen round objects like pipes. I don’t think mummy is a good answer to #10 because a mother mummy doesn’t make sense, and mummy as an alternate to mother does not belong in the set of other answers (none of which are alternates to either of the clues). I’d suggest Pearl as an alternative answer.
For number nine I had “ball/bawl”. For 11,I too used “butt”.
I got park for 3(cars dont have a trunk in europe),board for 2 and pistol for 8.
I had ‘marines for #8, later I thought, what about ‘jacket’. It goes with ‘army’ and a water jacket is part of an engine
I think I was lucky with this as I was educated in UK and live in Canada, so I had the best of both worlds for word meaning. I also got board for #2. Thanks for this I had such trouble with the shortterm memory game I was quite depressed. But like anything else I had to apply myself. My grade school teacher would be proud! I find the best way to tackle a memory problem (or any problem) is to walk away and do something else ( I cleaned the bathroom) and some of the answers popped into my head as I worked. Ligthten up on yourself and try again. Thanks again.
I came up with linen for #7
I don’t have a comment. I was just trying to read an article when I was blocked by this page. Why can’t I do it?
For tree-car I came up with accident. (Nooo I don’t work in law enforcement) lol
#9 was my problem. Tennis Racquet and Noise Racket did not follow “always spelled the same.”
I got mud for #6. mud money & mud river… as in dirty money & dirty river
Note for Larry: Tennis Racquet is also spelled as Tennis Racket.
For #8 I got BASE — I’m an artist and paints have a water base or an oil base.
Here are my answers:
1. key
2. deck
3. trunk
4. pupil
5. case
6. flow
7. roses [bed of roses and paper roses lol~]
8. boy [army boy, new recruit and water boy]
9.racket
10.mummy/mommy [i though homo-something should have the same spelling?]
11. filter [cigarette filter and faucet/pipe filters]
I’m not american… I’m asian and I don’t live outside my country…yet. Haha~
I had ‘butt’ for no. 11
how about army/water navy ?