"In one study, published in Neuron, the researchers looked at fast brain waves that flicker about 70 to 150 times per second through a part of the brain involved in speech perception. They realized that the power of these high-gamma waves consistently plummets about 100 milliseconds after a word boundary. Like a blank space in printed text, the sharp drop marks the end of a word for people who are fluent in that language."
"In a different study, published in Nature, the scientists reported that native speakers of English, Spanish or Mandarin all showed these high-gamma responses to their mother tongues, but listening to foreign speech didn't trigger the dips as strongly or consistently. Bilingual people showed nativelike patterns in both their languages, and the brain activity of adult English learners listening to English looked more nativelike the more proficient they were."
Speech lacks clear acoustic boundaries; pauses occur about as often within words as between words, causing unfamiliar languages to blur into a continuous stream. Measurements of fast, high-gamma brain waves (70–150 Hz) in a speech‑perception cortical area reveal consistent power drops roughly 100 milliseconds after word endings. The sharp high-gamma dip functions like a blank space, marking the end of a word for fluent listeners. Native speakers of English, Spanish, or Mandarin all show these high‑gamma responses to their mother tongues, while foreign speech produces weaker, less consistent dips. Bilinguals exhibit nativelike patterns in both languages, and adult learners' brain responses become more nativelike with greater proficiency.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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