EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams

skor

parents tend to yell at the same time and it needs simultaneous processing

awestroke

This is maybe only tangentially relevant to the linked study, but I've noticed I can read aloud from a book on autopilot while thinking about other things or even thinking back on past conversations. I could not do this a few years ago, but now it happens on its own. I wonder how that relates to attention and speech streams

subhro

As a pilot and a radio officer, I have always been able to process and service 2 audio streams simultaneously. So not surprised with this finding.

runtime_lens

This makes me wonder how much of paying attention is really prioritization rather than filtering everything else out. We probably process far more than we're consciously aware of.

t23414321

Then it is known that if you play to someone with small delay what he says he will be lost on both - so he can't think about and listen to what he is saying if it's not one stream.

j45

The DJ is explained.

dr_dshiv

“Bilocation” was one of the legendary superpowers of Pythagoras (he was miraculously able to lecture in two cities at the same time). Whenever I’m in multiple conversations at once in a social setting, I think of Pythagoras

latentframe

The simultaneous neural representation is very interesting result here

lokimedes

Many mindfulness practices seem to direct attention at two place at once, to quiet the inner voice. Perhaps this relates to more than just speech, but to attention itself. George Gurdjieff's "The Fourth Way" deals with self remembering, and his pupil, P. D. Ouspensky, has a very vivid description in [1] of how focusing on two things at once leads to a changed state of consciousness, that seems like meditation, and comes from the saturation of the two streams of attention. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_the_Miraculous

broccoluvr

you guys telling me you still listening to only 1 podcast at the time?

londons_explore

Listening to two talkers at a time is certainly doable... As is talking whilst listening to another conversation - eg. Giving a lecture whilst eves dropping on the people talking at the back of the lecture theatre. However, having a two way conversation with one person whilst listening to another is really hard. Not sure why.

jimbob45

If you can listen to someone play the piano with two hands, it’s a short hop to get to speech.

thelastgallon

"humans have only one language processor" -- this is what I remember from Patrick Henry Winstons lecture

moezd

Yes, and you can also write two different sentences using two different pens in your hands.

DrScientist

If you couldn't process multiple streams ( audio/visual/other senses ) how would you ever be able to monitor the background for danger and context switch? There is a difference between conscious experience and what's going on in the background.

throwawaysjskdk

yep, my wife does this routinely

vanderZwan

Come on guys, the contribution of the research is that it made measurements of how the processing of multiple inputs is represented in EEGs, not whether or not we can handle multiple inputs. Stop acting snarky, it just shows you didn't read beyond the headline.

alkyon

The same is true for music, otherwise canons and polyphony wouldn't work.

a_gopher

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.

ChrisRR

I had assumed this was already well known. My issue is that I can't stop processing other speech streams. It seems other people can tune out conversations around them when talking to a person but I have to hear every word