A group of researchers in linguistics and psychology has found that our brains can quickly understand the fundamental structure of a brief sentence when it’s shown to us, taking only about 150 milliseconds, which is roughly the time it takes to blink.
With the rapid-fire messages from today’s digital channels—like phone notifications and text overlays on videos—our brains receive information much faster than we hear spoken language. But can we interpret these texts as swiftly as we can understand the visual elements on our screens?
The findings seem to indicate “yes,” as per recent studies from researchers at New York University. They’ve shown that when a short sentence is flashed, our brains quickly recognize its basic linguistic framework in about 150 milliseconds, similar to the speed of a blink.
“Our research demonstrates that the brain’s comprehension of language may function like our quick perception of visual scenes, from which we grasp the core meaning almost instantly,” states Liina Pylkkänen, a professor in both the Linguistics and Psychology Departments at NYU. She led the study published in Science Advances and the Journal of Neuroscience. “This indicates that the brain’s capacity for processing language may be much quicker than we assume—within the time it takes to hear a single syllable, it can actually apprehend the structure of a short sentence.”
The evolution from email to social media and smartphones has transformed our reading habits from a slow, reflective practice to the rapid and fragmented absorption of digital information, with brief messages constantly arriving via notifications, online platforms, and potentially, augmented realities in the near future.
“This change highlights that our brains can not only process these quick messages instinctively but can also make immediate decisions about them, like choosing to archive an email or responding to a quick social media post,” explains Pylkkänen. “But how well do we truly comprehend these rapid communications, and what mechanisms do our brains utilize to handle them? The fact that our brains can seemingly grasp the meaning of fast messages in just one glance might reveal essential insights about the capabilities of our language-processing system.”
The researchers began their inquiry by examining existing scientific theories on language comprehension, which typically revolve around processing sentences word by word. They determined that these models fall short in explaining how quickly our brains can take in complete sentences at a glance, instead of word-for-word like in spoken language.
To study this further, the team conducted a series of experiments, monitoring brain activity through magnetoencephalography as participants read either grammatical sentences (like nurses clean wounds) or lists of nouns (like hearts lungs livers). The findings revealed that the left temporal cortex—the area responsible for language comprehension—began to differentiate simple three-word sentences from unstructured lists as quickly as 130 milliseconds after they were displayed.
“This rapid response suggests that understanding a sentence at a glance may function more like the quick perception of a visual scene rather than the slower, more deliberate process typical of spoken language,” Pylkkänen explains. “In the same time it takes to hear one syllable, the brain can recognize the structure of a three-word sentence.”
The researchers noted that this swift detection process occurs even when the sentence has grammatical errors, such as an incorrect verb form (like nurses cleans wounds), or when the meaning is implausible. This indicates that the rapid processing reflects the identification of basic phrase structure but not necessarily the grammar or semantics involved, according to Jacqueline Fallon, the first author of the Science Advances study, who was a researcher at NYU during the investigation and is currently a doctoral student at the University of Colorado.
Additional research on these quick responses published in the Journal of Neuroscience, conducted by NYU graduate student Nigel Flower, further supports this finding. It demonstrated that even minor errors in phrase structure—like swapping two adjacent words (e.g., “all are cats nice”)—lead to a decrease in the brain’s quick response. Interestingly, Flower observed that at around 400 milliseconds, the brain seems to “correct” the error, processing the sentence as though it were fully grammatical.
“This indicates that the brain not only swiftly recognizes phrase structures but also automatically rectifies small mistakes,” Flower notes. “This explains why readers frequently overlook minor errors—they have already corrected them subconsciously.”
By presenting participants with entire sentences all at once rather than word by word, the researchers were able to reveal the brain’s capability to quickly discern basic phrase structures, even when the sentence’s meaning was nonsensical or there was a grammatical error while maintaining the right structure.
“These findings may offer valuable insights into the brain’s inherent language processing skills, apart from the typical sequential nature of spoken language,” concludes Pylkkänen.
The research received funding from the National Science Foundation (BCS-2335767) and the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute.
