A team of researchers from the Basque Center for Knowledge, Brain and Language (BCBL), an institution that studies the cognitive processes related to this ability, has discovered how our brain manages to anticipate and allows us to know what they are going to express other people before they do. It is an everyday phenomenon that can be observed, for example, in the following situation. If someone says: “It’s very cold; your hands are going to freeze if you don’t put the… ”, it is very likely that we mentally complete the sentence with the word“ gloves ”. But how is the brain mechanism that allows it?
One of the most widespread and accepted hypotheses among neuroscientists establishes that this mechanism has a lot to do with the production of language itself. That is, while we listen or read, different areas related to its understanding and information processing are activated in our brain. In a report published in SINC on this matter, it is indicated that, at that moment, another network of brain circuits related to the production of language was also set in motion. BCBL experts point out that some studies had already shown the existence of a link between this ability and the prediction we make of what is going to be said, but they indicate that, until now, it was not yet clear how this link was built.
Key to conversation
As explained in an essay published in Scientific Reports , to shed some light on this issue they carried out an experiment involving 60 people, divided into two groups. They had to read a hundred sentences that appeared, word after word, on a computer monitor. At the same time, the researchers examined the electrical activity of his brain. The idea was that the members of the first group read the sentences in silence, while pronouncing the same syllable over and over again, which blocked the motor system involved in the production of language. In the members of the second this did not happen, since they simply had to make a slight noise with their tongue while reading.
Clara D. Martín, an expert in cognitive psychology from the BCBL who has coordinated this initiative, points out in the aforementioned SINC report that if the motor system involved in the production of language were essential to anticipate words during reading, the subjects of the first group they could not predict them. Well, that’s how it was. The second group managed to anticipate words more, a skill that, for Martín, favors the perception and understanding of language and makes it more effective. “Having a pre-activated word in the brain means that it will be much easier to recognize and integrate it,” he says. The results of the study thus confirm the importance of this form of prediction to facilitate fluency in a conversation.
Reference: Prediction is Production: The missing link between language production and comprehension . Clara D. Martin et al. Scientific Reports. Volume 8 (2018) . Doi: 10.1038 / s41598-018-19499-4
