Milena Velba With Gun

The brain takes half a second to find a word

(N of C: on average, it takes me two seconds and three hours)

Taken The Castilian.

A study by the University Pompeu Fabra and the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) Barcelona shows that the human brain takes less than half second to recover the word that the person needs to pronounce in his speech spoken. The results of the work is published this week in the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences' (PNAS).

As explained Albert Costa, director of the study, "the context of our work is associated with the passage of time in which the brain retrieves words that mean the individual. That is, the speed with which the brain accesses information associated with the word and what type takes to select the right word for oral speech. "

The study is part of a broader objective to obtain a temporal map of the different steps of processing that the brain needs to carry out the ability to speak.

"We believe that this map will help us to understand temporal best this remarkable human skill and science provide new tools to explore why the failures occur in speech and other speech errors in healthy populations and patients with brain damage, "added Costa.

From their results, the researchers conclude that the brain deals with a lot of speed of language processing and information related to words, particularly in a period of 200 milliseconds (ms), and that the brain needs about 180 ms to successfully complete this operation and the word that the subject wants to say in the stream of language production.

This is the first study provides direct evidence of brain activity in real time when the brain begins to recover words and how long it takes to retrieve the relevant word during speech production.

"We believe that by providing a temporary information as defined be important implications, both theoretical and diagnosis, to determine when and what are the causes of speech pathology in patients, such as stuttering, aphasia and the emphasis on foreign languages \u200b\u200band as in determining the factors that lead to the development of speech disorders, "concluded Costa.

The study was led by Albert Costa, associate professor in psychology at the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, \u200b\u200bICREA research professor, along with Kristof Srijkers and Clare Martin. Costa's team also benefited from the collaboration of researcher Guillaume Thierry of Bangor University in Wales.