Your Brain Can Understand Basic Sentence Structures In The Blink Of An Eye, Which Is 125 Milliseconds
Have you ever wondered just how fast we can process words? It turns out that human brains can decode written language in the blink of an eye!
They are like speed-reading machines, allowing us to absorb the constant flood of information we receive on our smartphones quickly every day.
In a new study, scientists measured the brain activity of 36 participants and found that people can understand basic sentence structures in as little as 125 milliseconds, which is equivalent to the speed of a blink. The discovery could help us learn more about how our brains encode language.
The research team employed a non-invasive technique called magnetoencephalography. It uses magnetic fields to monitor electrical activity in the brain.
As they were being scanned, the participants were shown a three-word sentence structure that flashed onto a screen for 300 milliseconds. A second set of unstructured words followed shortly after. It either remained the same as the first sentence or was altered by one word.
The participants were asked to determine whether the second sentence was the same as the first or had been modified.
The scans revealed that the left temporal cortex of the brain, which is an important part of the brain’s ability to understand language, showed higher levels of activity for three-word sentences than unstructured lists of words. The activity appeared in just 125 milliseconds.
The participants did their best when the sentences contained a subject, a verb, and an object. The fastest brain activity was observed when phrases like “nurses clean wounds” were presented, in comparison to noun lists such as “hearts, lungs, livers.”
The rapid perception was also noted for sentences that contained agreement errors, meaning that the verb did not match the pluralization of the subject. An example of this would be the sentence, “Nurses cleans wounds.”
Drobot Dean – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
The brain was also able to quickly detect sentences that don’t make sense, like “wounds clean nurses.” The results of the study suggest that our brains are not just glimpsing the words that are there.
Instead, they are actually applying our previously learned knowledge of the world to better understand what the sentences mean immediately.
“So just like your own car is quickly identifiable in a parking lot, certain language structures are quickly identifiable and can then give rise to a rapid effect of syntax in the brain,” said Liina Pylkkanen, a professor of linguistics and psychology at New York University.
“It’s interesting since the structural knowledge is abstract, but somehow, you’re still able to grasp it from the stimulus.”
In the future, the researchers plan to study the types of sentence structures that the brain can discern quickly and investigate whether they correspond to the kinds of sentences people learn as kids.
The study was published in the journal Science Advances.
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