In a prior post we discussed the miracle of speech production.
Hearing and understanding the speech produced by another is no less of a miracle. The combination of speech production with speech comprehension by another is the basis of all complex human interactions. It is the basis for human cooperation which is the foundation of society. Much more could be said, but, it should be clear how essential these processes are to our flourishing as a species.
We take it all for granted. But if we take some time to look deeply at what transpires as we listen to voiced sounds and understand what is being communicated, we will find a miraculous process in action.
When we process sounds we immediately and automatically pick out individual words from the continuous stream. We hear each word as separate and distinct, but they are not. We hear an apparent pause between each word, but there is not. It’s an automatic auditory perceptual process called segmentation. Our neural language processing system inserts the pauses even though they are not there. It simplifies language decoding for us automatically and without awareness. It’s one of many miracles of language.
Once the word has been segmented we hear it an immediately understand its meaning. But, what is that understanding? It is also without awareness how we obtain the meaning from a symbol, word. We just sense it and know it but there is no indication how we do this. Sometimes there’s a vivid sensory image produced but mostly the meaning emerges without any tangible image or sensation. It’s another of many miracles of language.
But the meaning of each word is not detected in isolation. It is extracted within the context of other words surrounding it. We are not aware of this but it is demonstrable that this occurs as many words with different meanings have share the same sound pattern, e.g. blue and blew and bleu. We contextualize the word to extract the meaning automatically. His is just another of the many miracles of language.
The nervous system appears to be programed to learn and implement language comprehension. During development language is learned too rapidly to be explained by simple learning processes. The brain appears to be preprogrammed to acquire language. There is an area in the parietal lobe of the human cortex that is crucial for understanding articulate language. It is on the same side of the brain as the frontal area responsible for speech, most frequently the left side of the brain. When that area is destroyed in adulthood, the individual will never again be able to understand articulate speech. So, much of the automatic processes of language comprehension results from nervous system mechanism that work without thought or awareness.
Contemplate and meditate deeply on understanding language. We believe that we are totally in control of it. But, we are not. Much of it is beyond awareness. Watch it and be fascinated and amazed by this uniquely human miraculous activity.
CMCS