Hockey fans are getting smarter without knowing it. Athletes and sports fans improve their brain function by using parts of their brain to understand sport language, according to a study released Tuesday.

A region of the brain usually used to plan and control physical actions is activated when people listen to sports conversations, according to the study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers at the University of Chicago asked 12 professional and college hockey players, eight fans and nine who had never watched a game to listen to sentences about hockey, such as shooting and making saves. They also listened to sentences about everyday activities, such as ringing doorbells or sweeping with a broom.

The subjects' brains were scanned with functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), to see which parts of the brain were most active. Researchers then gauged their language comprehension with a series of tests.

The fMRI showed that those areas of the brain associated with physical actions were active while the players and fans listened. Nearly all the subjects understood the everyday activities, but hockey players and fans were far better than newcomers at understanding sentences about the sport.

"We show that non-language related activities, such as playing or watching a sport, enhance one's ability to understand language about their sport precisely because brain areas normally used to act become highly involved in language understanding," lead author and associate professor in psychology Sian Beilock said. "Sports experience enhances the neural processing of action language."

The neural networks involved in comprehension change to include areas of the brain active in carrying out sports skills. This has lasting effects on language understanding, Beilock said.

Research shows that participating in an activity taps into brain networks not normally linked to language and improves understanding of language related to that activity. This could be useful in finding better ways of learning.