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How long is now? The multiple timescales of language processing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2016

Christopher J. Honey ,
Janice Chen ,
Kathrin Müsch  and
Uri Hasson
Christopher J. Honey
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Collaborative Program in Neuroscience, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada; [email protected]@utoronto.cahttp://www.honeylab.org
Janice Chen
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and the Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540. [email protected]@princeton.eduhttp://hlab.princeton.edu
Kathrin Müsch
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Collaborative Program in Neuroscience, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada; [email protected]@utoronto.cahttp://www.honeylab.org
Uri Hasson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and the Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540. [email protected]@princeton.eduhttp://hlab.princeton.edu
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Abstract

Christiansen & Chater (C&C) envision language function as a hierarchical chain of transformations, enabling rapid, continuous processing of input. Their notion of a “Now-or-Never” bottleneck may be elaborated by recognizing that timescales become longer at successive levels of the sensory processing hierarchy – that is, the window of “Now” expands. We propose that a hierarchical “process memory” is intrinsic to language processing.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e77
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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