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Human brains can discern the basic structures of write language from a single glance — enabling us to quickly consume the torrent of information feed to us by smartphones , a new study finds .
By measuring the brain activity of 36 Tennessean , scientists find that people can detect basic sentence structures in as little as 125 milliseconds , or about the speed of a blink of an eye .
The brain processes the structure of written sentences incredibly quickly, a study finds.
This imply that people can process words as quickly as we comprehend visual scenes , a skill that enables us to continually watch over and navigate the world around us . The novel finding , published Wednesday ( Oct. 23 ) in the journalScience Advances , could serve reveal key clues about how our brains encode language , the researchers said .
study how the brain processes written message enables scientists to understand more about the property of language — in particular those properties that are not yoke to speech , Liina Pylkkanen , a prof of linguistics and psychological science at New York University , tell Live Science .
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canvass the neurobiology of language is often made difficult by the mouth , in that it " forces us to turn the nomenclature into a sequence " of brainiac activity so as to talk words aloud , Pylkkänen pronounce . This restrain our understanding of language ’s properties to those involve by the discussion - by - countersign serialization demand for speech .
To sidestep this issue , the research worker used a non - invasive technique call magnetoencephalography , which use charismatic field to track electric activeness in the brain . While being scan , unpaid worker were present with a three - word conviction structure that flash onto a screen for 300 ms , conform to by a second set of Scripture that was either left the same or altered by one word . The participants ’ chore was to assess whether the 2d sentence was the same as the first or had been changed .
The scan give away that the learning ability ’s left temporal cerebral cortex — part of the organ ’s outermost stratum that ’s key for sympathize voice communication — showed higher activity for three - give-and-take sentences than unstructured tilt of intelligence , and this activity show up in just 125 ms .
player do their good when the sentences contained a subject , verb and object , with the fast brain activity being determine for idiom such as " nurses clean wounds , " compared to noun lists like " hearts lungs liver . "
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This rapid detection was also take in for judgment of conviction that carry agreement errors , in which the verb does n’t pit the pluralisation of the subject — for example , " nurses clean house wounds . " The nous also quickly detect farfetched sentence , such as " wounds clean nurse . " The researchers aver this suggest that our brains are n’t just detecting the presence of the words but are give our old knowledge of the domain to well parse what the sentences mean right forth .
" So just like your own car is speedily identifiable in a parking lot , certain language social organization are cursorily identifiable and can then give rise to a rapid effect of syntax in the brain , " Pylkkänen said . " It ’s interesting since the [ judgment of conviction ] morphologic noesis is abstract , but somehow you ’re still able to grasp it from the stimulus . "
The researchers plan to come after up on their finding by further studying the types of sentence structures that the brain can detect quickly , and by looking into whether these align with the types of sentences people first check as children . They also plan to study whether other visual stimulant , such as images , are work on using any of the same mechanism we use to sympathize text .
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