Summer 2014 online Crossword Study

Anybody is invited to take part in the 'cognitive crossword challenge'

http://challenge.cls.mtu.edu/WebXword4/

Feel free to forward this to anyone who you may feel would be interested. Participation in the study is voluntary and you will not be paid (but hopefully it will be fun).

We are interested in players of all levels and experiences.  There is a short background survey, followed by up to six short games, all played through a web browser (you need to use a computer with a keyboard; tablets/phones won't work). In the study, you get a clue with a partially filled in answer and have to try to solve it.  You can play as few or many of the games as you would like.  This is related to the study we ran at the ACPT in March, but if you did part of that study previously, you can take part again on-line.

Instructions:

To begin, follow the link to
http://challenge.cls.mtu.edu/WebXword4/
and click on the 'register' button.

Your identify will not be tied to your data, but the registration will let you do part of the study in one setting and come back to finish it later.

Then, once you enter in a name and email (fake names are OK), you will get a message via that email to confirm registration.  That will take you back to the website to log in with the name/password you just created.

Then, click the 'game set 1' option on the left side of the screen.  Please do the survey first, and then as many of the games (up to 6) as you have time to.  You do not have to do this all in the same setting.

Presentaton at the Society for Mathematical Psychology

I'm in Quebec at the Society for Mathematical Psychology meetin
presenting some of my research on crossword puzzle solvers.  The complete slide presentation can be found here.

A highlight of the presentation was the video below, which shows an expert and novice playing the same puzzle. I'll let you guess who is who.

 

In fact, the novice was actually sped up by a factor of 4.

Below is a brief review of the presentation.