Shubha plays piano and finds the intertwining of math and music astounding. She also plays basketball and likes the strategy involved in this team sport. She aspires to become a cardiologist because she says, "it's amazing to me how something the size of my fist can keep people alive every second."
How does the brain process misspelled or scrambled words? Shubha learned that such puzzles are solved at four levels—by clues provided by discourse (context), syntax, semantics, and phonology. Shubha devised a test of scrambled words in which some of these clues were available and others not. She hypothesized that proper context would provide the greatest benefit for word analysis.
Shubha devised nine trials in which participants had to unscramble five words. Two trials assessed the role of phonology by requiring participants to unscramble words that had the first sound intact or the first and last intact. The context trials used scrambled words in a paragraph or sentence. The syntax trials had scrambled words as part of a nonsensical sentence or paragraph. The semantics trials featured scrambled words with the first letter intact or first and last intact. A control trial had only scrambled words with no clues. Shubha found that volunteers scored best with phonological clues, unscrambling words with sounds intact. A close second were scores in the trials using scrambled words in context.
