Here’s one sample fragment that listeners heard: “And they recommend against crossing that line. But while the sentences individually made sense, they didn’t work together to tell a story. We saw the words begin to induce alignment in the early language areas of our subjects’ brains, but not beyond that.Then, we took the words and built sentences from them. Based on this result, we concluded the auditory cortex becomes entrained to sounds, regardless of whether the sounds convey any meaning.Next, we scrambled the words in the story, so while each word was comprehensible, all together it sounded like a list of unconnected words. We found the backwards sounds induced entrainment, or alignment, of neural responses in the auditory cortices of all of the listeners but did not spread any deeper into their brains. This preserved many of the original auditory features but completely removed their meaning. First, we took the story and played it backwards. But what are the factors driving this neural entrainment: the sounds that the speaker produces the words the speaker is saying or the ideas that the speaker is trying to convey in their story?So, we.
When we looked at responses before the experiment started while our five listeners were at rest and waiting for the storyteller to begin, we saw the responses were very different from each other and not in sync (see the inset bubble at right).However, immediately as the story started, we saw something amazing happen. Suddenly, we saw the neural responses in all of the subjects begin to and go up and down in a similar way.Scientists call this effect the process by which brain responses become locked to and aligned with the sounds of speech. We started by comparing the similarity of neural responses across different listeners in their auditory cortices - the part of the brain that processes the sounds coming from the ear.
Let me take you through the research that brought us here.In one experiment, we brought people to the fMRI scanner and scanned their brains while they were either telling or listening to real-life stories. Since 2008, in Princeton has been focused on the question: How exactly do the neuron patterns in one person’s brain that are associated with their particular stories, memories and ideas get transmitted to another person’s brain?Through the work in my lab, we believe we’ve uncovered two of the hidden neural mechanisms that enable us the exchange: 1) during communication, soundwaves uttered by the speaker the listener’s brain responses with the speaker’s brain responses 2) our brains have developed a common neural protocol that allows us to use such brain coupling to share information. Human lives revolve around our ability to share information and experiences, and as a scientist, I’m fascinated by how our brains process interpersonal communication. In fact, we already possess such a technology - it’s called effective storytelling.
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