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EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

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Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#101

Post by fooqux »

yakbarber wrote: post #96
shortercode wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I experimented a bit with this when my daughter was younger. I used to walk around the room with her in my arms singing to get her to sleep. To ensure she would be settled I would then count 300 steps before putting her in the cot. I discovered I could count and sing at the same time by visualising the number in my head, instead of using my inner monologue. But it requires more focus to maintain. Thankfu…

If you miss it, maybe she does too. You can still do it even though she doesn’t need it

Maybe. But as a parent, sometimes you have to make sacrifices (or force them to make sacrifices) as otherwise they won't have space grow.

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#102

Post by fortran77 »

I do a form of this all the time and I've always wondered "how." I can copy Morse Code--hearing the code and writing it down--while carrying on a conversation with someone else. I'm only "encoding" it, in that I have to read it to know what I just copied. The process of hearing a letter or word in Morse and moving my hand to write it has become so automatic that I can do it while having a live conversation with someone in the room.

It would be interesting to know what's going on in my head with an EEG or FMRI...

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#103

Post by taosx »

johnisgood wrote: post #76
thedanbob wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid, my dad (a physicist) would often read stories to me and my brother. He would sometimes fall asleep while reading, and we could tell when that was coming because suddenly our children's story would stop making sense and get filled with all these big physics terms.

Oh yeah, I have been sleep deprived so much that the things that I said made no sense. I still formulated sentences but they did not have any meaning. In fact, I noticed this myself and I was like "fuck, what I just said made no sense". This happened a few times. It is a pretty interesting experience.

I had the same experience after almost 4+ days going without sleep. A friend came to check up on me after I fell asleep, I woke up and started telling him a whole story that made no sense, but I said it with such importance that for a week he was asking me to explain to him what I meant...which I don't remember exactly, but it was important.

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#104

Post by [deleted] »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #78
junon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes of course, the transmitted audio would be mono. I meant one radio in one ear and another radio in the other ear, or if you mix them and they both play in both ears. But it sounds like they're mixed (talking over each other in a single audio stream).

Yes. I have never seen any system (planes or elsewhere) that splits multiple voice communication inputs so you hear different streams in different ears. How would that be different (let alone better) than having both streams in both ears? It's not like your brain can process each ear separately.

[deleted]

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#105

Post by inigyou »

imzadi wrote: post #99
NalNezumi wrote: post #70

Related, but this reminds me of the story by Richard Feynman [1] when he practices counting up to 60 seconds in his head, and after many experiments around what he can do simultaneously conclude that he can simultaneously count and read but not speak. Later sharing this to John Tukey, he's told that Tukey can't read while counting but could speak while counting. Turns out Tukey is visualizing looking at a tape, while…

I've noticed something similar. I can listen to audiobooks and follow/absorb what is going on without really paying attention, as long as I am not trying to read something. I can't follow an audiobook and read at the same time. This is probably because I subvocalize when I read. I have taken speed reading courses but I don't enjoy reading that way. I like feeling every word as I read.

I read by imagining a voice saying the words. Is that not how everyone reads?

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#106

Post by inigyou »

SwtCyber wrote: post #93
hoppp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can also count while reading, I just tried it. But I can't write while counting. I can have one interpretation and one generative task running at the same time.

It really does feel like reading and counting can occupy separate lanes, while writing and counting are both trying to use the same internal narrator

A CPU designer might call them execution ports.

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#107

Post by alexpotato »

There is an interesting point about this from animation.

Imagine you are seeing a pendulum clock and it makes a "tick" on one extreme and "tock" on the other.

When they first started doing animation + sound they noticed that if you play the "tock" sound at the exact same time the pendulum hit the extreme, people would think it was delayed.

Research showed that humans required a small amount of time to "context switch" from one stimulus to another. I think it's about 1/16th of a second.

Some interesting other observations about time perception here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#108

Post by dboreham »

vanderZwan wrote: post #44
skor wrote: post #2

parents tend to yell at the same time and it needs simultaneous processing

Your example is needlessly bleak, but in general: yes, we're a social species and being able to process multiple speech streams seems obviously pretty important in many social contexts involving more than two people.

Seems doubtful to me that there will be any hardware in our species specific to processing language. It's going to be the same basic hardware as Chimps. Whatever is going on that's related to us being a social species is all software.

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#109

Post by Fripplebubby »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #78
junon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes of course, the transmitted audio would be mono. I meant one radio in one ear and another radio in the other ear, or if you mix them and they both play in both ears. But it sounds like they're mixed (talking over each other in a single audio stream).

Yes. I have never seen any system (planes or elsewhere) that splits multiple voice communication inputs so you hear different streams in different ears. How would that be different (let alone better) than having both streams in both ears? It's not like your brain can process each ear separately.

But of course your brain can process each ear separately. You have a holistic conscious experience, but that is like a hallucination constructed by your brain for your own benefit. The raw signals are indeed "in stereo"

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#110

Post by dboreham »

jimbob45 wrote: post #29

If you can listen to someone play the piano with two hands, it’s a short hop to get to speech.

Not really (except perhaps if it's Stockhausen they're playing). A piece of music played with two hands is still one coherent information stream.
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