There's a neurological reason you say "um" when you think of a word

[marmar]

There’s a neurological reason you say "um" when you think of a word
Disfluencies can shed light about what’s going on in the brain as we speak

By ADRIEL JOHN ORENA
PUBLISHED JUNE 2, 2021 8:30AM


Eishi Asano's latest work sheds light on those seemingly pesky words that litter our speech: uhs and ums.

As a neurologist at Wayne State University, Asano works on mapping human abilities to brain regions. One such important ability is the ability to use language. Neuroscientists have discovered that, like many little cogs in a wheel, a wide network of brain regions all work together to produce language. Certainly, the ability to communicate with others affects all aspects of life. Thus, protecting these brain regions during brain surgery is of high priority.

Asano has an opportunity few have: to study the brain in action. During a pre-surgical procedure called an electrocorticography (ECoG), an incision is made in a research participant's skull, and electrodes are placed directly on the exposed surface of their brain. He then presents them with photographs of complex scenes and asks them to describe it.

....(snip)....

Referred to as a "disfluencies" by linguists, uhs and ums are often viewed as disruptions to the flow of speech. They are littered across our speech in all contexts, whether in presentations to a large audience, or in conversations with your closest pal. Estimates vary, but one research group found that such disfluencies pop up every 4.6 seconds, on average. They are equally short and overrepresented in all languages: French speakers say euh, Mandarin speakers say 那个, and ASL signers sometimes wiggle their fingers.

But while uhs and ums may seem like accidental nonsense words, disfluencies can actually provide us a rare window onto what's going on in the brain as we speak. For example, psycholinguists (scientists who study the psychology of language) argue that disfluencies can actually convey meaning. When researchers scoured through a corpus of transcribed speech, they found that a large proportion of disfluencies arose in specific locations: before difficult-to-pronounce and difficult-to-name words, or before words that haven't been recently discussed. In short, when we need some time to think of the next word, we make use of uhs and ums. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/02/theres-a-neurological-reason-you-say-um-when-you-think-of-a-word_partner/

[captain queeg]

1. That's um...interesting

[marmar]

2. .......

[Sneederbunk]

3. What about "so"?

[murielm99]

4. What about "like"

and "y'know?"

[lastlib]

5. "I mean, it's like, FERSURE, y'know?"

(that's a comprehensible sentence to some teenagers!)