EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams • Hacker News Board

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#151

Post by hoppp » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

dfgsdfgfgd wrote: post #125

SwtCyber wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, FWIW, I can easily write and count. It's actually way easier than I thought and takes no effort. Perhaps due to automatic touch typing while talking and thinking about something else etc? I can actually type and think about something else, never really noticed that before. Reading and counting is harder for me. I can do it, but it's tiring. Those feel like they share lanes to me.

With touch type it would work if I buffer the work ahead of time and then I can type out the buffer while I count.

Sort of like: I think what I will type then when I start typing I start counting.

I do not generate what I type while I count, but think of it before I do it.

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#152

Post by JackFr » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

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…

Honestly my takeaway from this is that simple experiments like this are very important in identifying how brains work. I am admittedly a fanboy of Feynman, but I believe these kinds of questions are worth a dozen EEGs or fMRIs asserting how the brain works.

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#153

Post by wincy » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

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…

Interesting, I often sing a good night lullaby to my kid and have discovered it’s trivial to read while doing so. But I just tried talking while counting in my head and it felt like a brick wall was blocking me.

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#154

Post by ulrikrasmussen » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

a_gopher wrote: post #57

If reading aloud a children story, you may notice you are able to maintain an independent unrelated train of thought. While doing so, I notice that occasionally extra mistakes can "leak" into the story telling - e.g. you read a single word incorrectly, maybe substituting a word from your other train of thought.

I can have an internal monologue about something completely unrelated to the story while reading it out aloud, but I won't be able to follow the story. I don't think I make mistakes, but I probably fail to put the correct intonation on sentences which require higher order thinking to infer the emotions of the characters in the story.

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#155

Post by xscott » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 6:32 PM UTC

wincy wrote: post #153

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…

Interesting, I often sing a good night lullaby to my kid and have discovered it’s trivial to read while doing so. But I just tried talking while counting in my head and it felt like a brick wall was blocking me.

Singing and playing guitar was super painful for me. Got easier after the first song, so now it's just painful to the people hearing me.

I remember a story about people who stutter not stuttering while singing.

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#156

Post by Traubenfuchs » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

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…

Try counting by imagining fingers in your head and talking at the same time. (-;

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#157

Post by altairprime » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

invictati wrote: post #150

taosx wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, sleep deprivation leads to temporary schizophrenia? Who could have foreseen this?

Sleep scientists and drill instructors!

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#158

Post by dave7 » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 7:03 PM UTC

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.

> It's not like your brain can process each ear separately.

If you've ever seen a dance music DJ (Tomorrowland is streaming on Youtube right now!) - that's exactly what many of them do.

To DJ a continuous mix as is the norm for this style - generally you'll have headphones on, but only covering one ear. You'll listen to "currently playing" though your right ear, through the venue sound system (well, it's monitors). You'll also be listening to "up next", on the other record/cd/mp3 deck, through the headphones to your other ear. And you'll work the pitch slider, trim controls etc and hopefully produce a good mix!

Not everyone does it like this, some have the headphones permanently on and mix in stereo both tracks at both ears. Or split ears, headphones only - that is an option on the usual Pioneer mixers. But it's surely the most common mental image of a club DJ to have them holding their hand to their headphones on one ear only, I'm sure!

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#159

Post by nonameiguess » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 7:24 PM UTC

vegavis wrote: post #128

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…

This has everything to do with the fact we have two brains. The left and right brain (more specifically the left and right hemispheres of the Cerebral Cortex) hold different functions cognitively, control the motor movements of the opposite sides of the body, and communicate thru the Corpus Callosum. Your full consciousness, or thought, is almost like a 'stream' created at this meeting point of the two brains where t…

I can't remember the book now, I think one of Antonio Damasio's? He recounted an experiment with a patient that had a severed corpus callosum where they put a wall between the eyes and showed him two different pictures, asking him what he saw, and he wrote one answer and spoke another, without any indication either half of him was aware the other half was inconsistent.

It was terrifying 20 odd years ago to read this kind of thing, but it's amusing in light of all the obsession with productivity hacking in Silicon Valley that I could almost see someone with a YouTube channel doing this on purpose to try and be able to accomplish simultaneous tasks a normal person would be tripped up on by the need for a normal brain to produce a single consistent narrative.

Re: EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

#160

Post by oggreen » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 7:26 PM UTC

Findings like these surprise me. I had a NDE a few years ago and my observation was such that everything slowed down tremendously and I was able to process every instant like it was slow motion. This wasn't like a "metaphysical" thing. I could recall the entire trip in the ambulance, every moment seemed like it was minutes.

We have so many "hacks" that the brain encodes to do the least work possible that I don't know if we could ever truly know what the brain would be capable of.