SUDOKU AND ASSOCIATIVE MEMORY

If you're at this site and reading this article, you probably already know that Sudoku is a great game to keep your brain ticking. Sudoku consists of a puzzle game based upon a 9-by-9 grid that's partially filled with numbers.


The objective is to fill the empty spaces of the grid with single digit numbers so that the same digit does not appear twice on any horizontal or vertical line.

Also, the same number should not appear twice in any of nine 3-by-3 mini grids on the screen. Sudoku began its gentle attack on us all around 2004 and many versions can now be found in countless national newspapers the world over.




Sudoku addicts are as obsessed with their puzzles as 1980s teenagers were fixated on their infuriating Rubik's cube. Just like the 1980's craze - the Rubik's cube, Sudoku gives your brain a jolly good work-out.

In actual fact, scientists say that solving them depends on neural pathways that even the most powerful computers are unable to replicate.

Researchers say that by observing how people solve the puzzles, we might one day be able to develop more intelligent and brain-like computers. Professor John Hopfield of Princeton University is currently researching the unique brain processes we use when playing Sudoku.

To crack Sudoku our brains use a unique set of neural pathways known as associative memory, Hopfield says, which enables us to discover a pattern from a partial clue. Although computer memories can hold large amounts of information and process it at great speed, they aren't yet capable of sophisticated associative memory.

Hopfield provides an algorithm of associative memory in his research paper, which - he says - could be implemented in silicon chips.