Brain Auto-Corrects Grammatical Errors
- 11 years ago
The brain auto-corrects grammatical errors.
While sometimes it's difficult to tell, the University of Oregon has found hard evidence to hold up a theory people have been debating for a while – the brain recognizes and processes incorrect grammar without even knowing it.
The study participants were native English speakers, aged 18 to 30.
The researchers tracked their brain activity using a device that records the changes of electrical pulses in the brain.
While the subjects were visually engaged by a series of correct and incorrect sentences, they were distracted by carefully placed audio interruptions in both sentences to distract them from the errors.
When the tones sounded before the error was read, 51 percent of the mistakes were detected. If the tone sounded directly after, 89 percent of them were reported.
The brain, however, picked up on all of them whether or not it made that consciously known.
Unfortunately, that may not be discovery enough to stop some individuals from constantly correcting other people’s grammar.
Researchers have found that people obsessed with grammatical rules aren’t just annoying, they may suffer from a form of OCD.
While sometimes it's difficult to tell, the University of Oregon has found hard evidence to hold up a theory people have been debating for a while – the brain recognizes and processes incorrect grammar without even knowing it.
The study participants were native English speakers, aged 18 to 30.
The researchers tracked their brain activity using a device that records the changes of electrical pulses in the brain.
While the subjects were visually engaged by a series of correct and incorrect sentences, they were distracted by carefully placed audio interruptions in both sentences to distract them from the errors.
When the tones sounded before the error was read, 51 percent of the mistakes were detected. If the tone sounded directly after, 89 percent of them were reported.
The brain, however, picked up on all of them whether or not it made that consciously known.
Unfortunately, that may not be discovery enough to stop some individuals from constantly correcting other people’s grammar.
Researchers have found that people obsessed with grammatical rules aren’t just annoying, they may suffer from a form of OCD.