NYC Gazette

Recent research by New York University linguists and psychologists reveals that our brains can process short text messages as quickly as visual scenes. This discovery highlights the brain's ability to detect linguistic structures rapidly, within approximately 150 milliseconds.

Liina Pylkkänen, a professor in NYU’s Department of Linguistics and Department of Psychology, explains, “Our experiments reveal that the brain’s language comprehension system may be able to perceive language similarly to visual scenes, whose essence can be grasped quickly from a single glance.” The study is documented in Science Advances and the Journal of Neuroscience.

The shift towards rapid consumption of digital content through email, social media, and smartphones has prompted researchers to explore how well we understand these quick messages. Pylkkänen notes that "our brains not only have the ability to instinctively process rapid messages but can also make snap decisions based on them."

Traditional models focusing on word-by-word sentence processing do not adequately explain this swift comprehension capability. To investigate further, researchers conducted experiments using magnetoencephalography to measure brain activity as participants read either grammatical sentences or lists of nouns. Findings indicate that the left temporal cortex distinguishes simple sentences from word lists within 130 milliseconds.

Jacqueline Fallon comments on this speed: “This suggests that at-a-glance sentence comprehension may resemble the rapid perception of a visual scene rather than the slower step-by-step process we associate with spoken language.”

Further research led by Nigel Flower supports these findings, showing how minor phrase structure errors affect brain responses. Flower observed that around 400 milliseconds after encountering an error like “all are cats nice,” the brain seems to correct it internally.

“These findings may provide valuable insights into the brain’s intrinsic language processing abilities,” says Pylkkänen.

The studies received funding from the National Science Foundation and the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute.