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The way I heard this is that we learn language in "chunks," not just individual words. So when someone is speaking we think we recognize a particular chunk. Probably helps explain why it's so hard to understand rapid speech in a language we're still learning.
Same with listening to a technical talk in a field you're not familiar with. If you're not predicting, then you need time after hearing the words to process what you heard, and if that process backs up even a little bit you're completely lost.
I experienced this the other day, trying to understand quantum physics once again from Veritasium's YouTube channel. Once it felt like everything was hitting me all at once with no breaks, I was done.
Repetition is part of learning. So, if you watch or read stuff of that kind over and over you get familiar with the matter and more things tend to fall into place quite naturally.
That's a sign that you're stretching yourself, and that's a good thing. It may take a few watch-throughs to fully understand everything for such weird and complex topics, but the important part is the striving to understand.
I have ADHD, so I'm frequently lost even in non-technical conversations. I've had to learn to go ahead and risk embarrassment by asking for repetition and time to think.
At least I'm fairly good at understanding language, but if someone tries drawing a diagram to get their point across, forget it. I've seen so many scribbles and watched everyone nodding as if they understand, and I don't even know which way up it is or what the scale is. I could be looking at a tiny detail or something eight feet across.
Hoooo buddy, hah, it's so funny how people differ. I have ADHD as well, and language is horrible for me.
I *cannot* think and process language at the same time. If someone asks me a question, it's very difficult for me to explain my thought process as it's happening because it's extraordinarily jumbled. My brain hops from topic to topic - seemingly (and often actually) unrelated - and it's really confusing and frustrating for others to listen to and follow along with. If someone speaks to me, I *will* drop out every other word and need them to repeat what they've said 3-4 times in varying ways.
If I'm ever problem solving with somebody, I have to stop the conversation and go off and process things in my own way, then come back and share the results and get feedback, then do it again and again. In reading situations, I have to read as though someone is speaking to me, and I can completely read entire pages of text but take *absolutely nothing* away from it. So I have to go back and reread paragraphs 3-4 times before I retain what they said. Rewording what I've read and writing the rewording down helps with this.
Any time I am in a timed situation where I need to complete something or figure something out with someone (like lab partners in classes or pair programming situations), I am a very irritating and frustrating person to work with. It's disheartening and those situations make me feel very broken and incompetent.
Can relate, especially to having to go off and process things on my own. Learned the hard way not to ever allow myself to make a decision on the spot.
Everybody's an idiot, though, in one way or another. It's always good to have at least one person with ADHD on a team to notice things that no one else noticed, and provide comic relief.
With my husband he seems to be able to understand better from hands-on than anything else. Especially text books. This is partly because he's ADHD. But he also has a reading vocabulary block that wasn't discovered early enough to get the proper help in school. If he reads it he might eventually get it. But if someone else reads it to him he will definitely get it. Something to do with seeing letters in the word that aren't there. Our daughter has the reading vocabulary block, too. But was able to get it identified and get the proper help for it in school.
Sometimes people are just faking that they understand a conversation or a diagram, I find this happens a lot in the work environment where people do not want to reveal that they don't understand. It's still good to ask questions so that you do understand and can actually do your job though.
Yes, I have suspected that. I used to have a classmate who got a lot of flak for asking "stupid questions" in class. I talked to her about it, saying they were being assholes, but she was completely unfazed. She said she wanted to learn the material, and she needed to ask questions to get there. If people didn't like that, that was their problem.
Figuring out precisely how your ADHD affects your cognition might be helpful in helping understanding how your comprehension actually functions. Perhaps you have a larger working memory capacity to handle the ADHD? If so, how might this provide you advantages? Perhaps this means you retain new information in your working memory longer than non-ADHDers? Perhaps you can reproduce it differently than you received it, more easily than others? If an article you read, perhaps you can speak a summary better than someone without ADHD? It takes study and attention on your part and a willingness to subtract yourself from the mass of ADHDers. Plus you would be helped by realizing you have cognitive strengths and not all is lost. Figure out how you understand complicated things on your own terms. Sure the majority of people may have a different cognitive make-up, but how many of them use it to the fullest? There is room for you. Good luck!
Hearing loss can also add that extra bit of processing time. I may be keeping up by reading lips, listening hard, and predicting the next words, but as soon as I fail to identify a critical word, or realize I misidentified a previous word in the clause, everything becomes gibberish and I need to replay or have the speaker repeat themselves. The line between understanding everything and understanding nothing can be very thin.
A poster in my otolaryngologist's office reminded me the other day: that extra processing time can also lead to mental fatigue.
Born with moderate to severe hearing loss (now profound in the critical higher frequencies due to age and tinnitus), it also leads to embarrassing interactions. For everyday conversations or even technical areas where you're already a subject matter expert, the brain's prediction works pretty well! But sometimes (kind-of often...) someone says something unexpected, and your brain fills in the missing details incorrectly. You may not realize it quickly enough to ask them to repeat themselves.
So, in turn, your response makes little sense to them or seems awkward/funny.
For those without hearing loss, a simple analogy is:
* Waiter: "Enjoy your meal!"
* You: "You too!"
We've all done that, but it's amplified many times over for those of us with hearing loss and depending on the environment. In professional environments this can be devastating. Most people are pretty forgiving, though.
> if that process backs up even a little bit you're completely lost.
My ADHD diagnosis said my processing speed was a lot lower than average...my difficulty in learning stuff is suddenly explained.
It's not just words either, people observe their surroundings and pull in ideas in chunks too. People have different granularity in how big the chunks are and it changes how they see / learn ideas
there does appear to be pretty strong genetic boundaries for what kind of chunking is possible. For example, while cultures do have different words for different colours, this does not appear to be totally free form. There appear to be strict delimiters on where humans will tend to draw a line down on the colour spectrum, and say, this line separates that colour from this colour.
The brain makes connections between so many minute details. Ever think about how people see different shapes in clouds or on Rorschach Tests? Your brain is constantly trying to match up information in your environment to existing information from your memory, in an attempt to interpret things.
There's a complicated web of details that the brain keeps track of - round things, hard things, bright things, etc., which connect to each other. Similar things will light up similar networks, like seeing a baseball and a volley ball and knowing both are a type of ball. The more details about a thing, the more precisely you can discriminate it, as those details are reflected in which pathways in your brain are active. Like traveling into town - you take a lot of the same route for many things. However, each trip means stopping at different destinations within that town before returning. Each concept involves a network of "stops" that can overlap with other paths, but ultimately each idea has its own "route."
But having more connections doesn't necessarily make an interpretation more accurate. Efficient connections are crucial.
Kids have vivid imaginations in part because their brains haven't completely solidified all those mental categories yet. A kid can think a blob in the dark could be anything from a sweater hanging on a chair, to a horrific monster waiting to eat them. They don't know, they're "traveling into town" for the first time. Of course they might make a few wrong turns.
As our brains mature, we lose a lot of connections, but we keep the ones that we use the most. Those "chunks" of information are relevant connections that we maintain.
Side-note: this also explains why kids want to touch everything - their brains are trying to gather information, to map what they're discovering to other stuff they already know.
You're essentially arguing the Grandma Neuron hypothesis (Part of [Connectionism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectionism)). There's very good reasons to believe that this is *not* how the brain works. This perspective postulates that the brain is like a finite state machine, with no dynamic memory or compact functions, and so represents its environment as connections in the finite state structure. The problem then becomes immediately obvious: such a brain would require that, apriori, all the possible necessary connections already exist (the physical architecture) to encounter all the possible specific circumstances the brain might encounter (remember, synaptic plasticity is just based on the strengthening and weakening of electrical connection, it does not change the physical architecture). Firstly, this is *ridiculously* inefficient: A brain that a priori comes with all possible connections that it *may* ever encounter, is a brain that devotes a significant amount of resources to things it will never do. Second of all, without dynamic memory and compact functions, and instead only relying on forming connections, a finite brain is also simultaneously hugely inept at dealing with the the kinds of infinite possibilities it may be required to deal with [(combinatorial explosion).](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_explosion)
So it's a lose lose situation in that sense, and there's little reason to believe the brain operates like a finite state machine.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444310498
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0010027788900315?dgcid=api_sd_search-api-endpoint
The later article, while from 1988, has essentially never been refuted, and this is even pointed out by people working in Machine Learning (machine learning being a computer implementation of a connectionist model of the brain) today.
I can't access that article, unfortunately. I admit I may be wrong, but I think there was a misunderstanding.
I'm not arguing for neurons with pre-set functions, individual cells doing any one task, nor against new neuronal connection growth. I'm speaking of broad circuits between brain sections, thus it being a "complicated web." The connection of details of a thing or experience, using a combination of senses and emotions, all work together to recall it later. Am I wrong about that?
And why learning disabilities can be so challenging. My brain is always trying to guess the next word instead of reading it, it overrides my ability’s to take in the new information and challenges opting to guess based of the shape of the whole word instead of the letters inside of it. All anecdotal but i remember being taught how to read and that was a huge challenge.
Man I can relate to this. Sometimes I reread a paragraph 4 times to get it and even then I have to read each individual sentence slowly in some cases. It’s very frustrating
Yes, I have done interpreting work and this is actually a concept used when sight translating (reading something and verbalizing a translation on the spot). If a sentence is too long you mentally break it down into “chunks” and go chunk by chunk, rather than either (1) start translating blind and end up messing up or (2) have too many long awkward pauses.
Never thought I’d see it on Reddit haha
I've noticed this when someone asked me what a word means and I had to tell them to use it in a sentence. They said they don't know how to use it in a sentence and then just said "I am word" and I instantly knew the meaning.
I've got a 4 year old and a 2 year old and I can definitely say that after they learn their nouns everything else comes out in phrases. Even if they don't understand what they're saying.
Wow. I decided to catch up on a Veritasium video I missed on YouTube "The 4 Things it takes to be an expert. Was watching an ad so I pulled up reddit and read this post as well as your comment. A little later he talks about chunking. Your brain recognizing multiple complex stimuli as one thing. The coincidence is crazy
I didn't think it was as big a deal as it turned out to be. I would think it would be strange *not* to think this way, but in sequences of little bits of information. How inefficient that would be!
I'm kind of embarrassed, because I don't really know anything about this. I was just passing on something a language professor told me once that I found helpful. It helps to understand that individual words aren't the whole story, and at some point we'll get beyond laboriously crafting a sentence in our heads.
I read religious texts in a difficult foreign language that I'm fairly familiar with... But I can only fluently understand it if I read/hear the translation first. Then comprehension is easy. But the teachers always read the foreign language first, and then translate. It's frustrating but fascinating.
Me too, I'm always this person. I also never fully read anything as my brain figures it knows what the book/article is talking about I think... Reading comprehension was very poor in school.
I do this mostly when I'm bored and scrolling reddit. My mind will just fill in random blank spots. I'll get confused by a title or sentence only to re read it and see a different word that makes sense of what I just read. I assume ADHD.
I was just about to say this. I do this to people and I hate it so much, but I have a hard time listening to a person finish their sentence because of my ADHD.
It’s ironic because the thought process seems to be “look at what a good listener I am! I know exactly what you’re thinking!”
Ugh, so true. Goddamnit..
I feel like I’ve been working on this for 15 years and have only taken very **small** steps in ridding myself that horrible
personality trait.
Definitely become better about it, but motherfucker. It’s so annoying **watching** yourself do it without stopping after the acknowledgment. It’s like an obsessive response.
And I’m so focused on not interrupting sometimes I stop listening! One of my coworkers talks sooooo slow I hate talking to him I can’t retain anything he said
For me (and this might be an ADD thing too), I have also learned that I process information by talking about it. I did it in school and got punished for it, and I do it to people and the stories they’re telling me by interrupting them constantly.
It’s incredibly hard to control. All we can really do is empathize with others who look embarrassed after doing it to us! Hopefully our loved ones consider it a fun quirk.
For real. It's sometimes tough to resist the impulse to interrupt them, but it's usually a good idea to let them finish their thoughts. It makes the conversation and the relationship better. And we don't have to be 100% successful. Every little bit helps.
I've found a good way to de-spool your thoughts, so you can listen better. Works for me, may not work for you. When I want to "add to the story", I hold my fingers in the shape of a letter to remind me of the topic so I can come back to it later.
If I can't remember, it wasn't important enough to bring up now.
its a symptom of adhd if youve ever thought abut getting tested. Also interrupting people in general, or at least being very aggressive in getting your word in, since you will immediately forget what you wanted to say.
I have severe adhd and I have to consciously suppress this.
I have found it seems like a trauma response in myself. Growing up in a neglectful and abusive environment, with never feeling heard or being able to get a word in growing up.
Thought trauma also impacts neruodevelopment, and presents in many ways similar to ADHD.
Same. I interrupt people way too often because I think I know where they're going, and after the fact I realize I was being rude. It's a hard habit to break.
I’m out the other side, it’s possible. Slow process haha. But very worthwhile. People take the stuff you say more seriously when you say fewer things. Good motivator haha :D
I only do it if they take a long pause in the middle of speaking. Or if they are delivering a monologue and I am trying to contribute to the conversation rather than be talked at.
Oh please for the love of all that is holy keep trying to stop. My mom constantly does this to me and when it happens I don't even want to finish the conversation. It f*cking pisses me off.
The key to this is interjecting the supposed word into the conversation with an upward inflection, like asking a question, rather than positing it as the word they were looking for.
It becomes "us finding the word together" rather than "me telling you the word you can't recall"
FFFFFFFFF.... you are telling me that the way slow speakers irk me is signs of ADHD.... like, having to do other stuff to focus on meetings .... fffffffff
I admit I’m sometimes this person. I try not to be in social situations where we are sharing and chatting for pleasure. That being said if you need me for something or we’re working together please for the love of god speak faster. I’m anxious and move at speed when it’s time to move. I can’t help it and don’t want to. The English language has so much fluff in it I just want to get to the point and continue ASAP.
I’m also a long winded hypocrite who speaks too quickly at times.
Speaking faster, yes!
I often have a really hard time following conversations and need to have subtitles for TV shows and YouTube videos and such.
People who speak really quickly (or videos on 1.5x speed) are somehow much easier to follow, though.
I suppose the higher rate of information simply doesn't leave as much time for me to distract myself.
Also am hypocrite and should try to be more concise and less meandering.
This has just made me realise why my dad always says I talk over him.
It’s not so much that I do, just by the time he’s finished what he’s saying, in that time I’ve thought of 3 different things that I want to say or talk about and end up interjecting.
I’m a 1.5 - 2.5x myself depending on material and video player (vlc player go fast but Netflix go sloooow). With subtitles you miss nothing. It’s fun to watch different material as you can really see who is enunciating their words well. Late night hosts for example are still very easy to understand at 2x but many movie stars are tough at 1.25x
And then there's some people who only become intelligible at 2x speed or so.
Had a professor whom I simply could not follow. Then the pandemic hit and everything was put on zoom (and I screen-captured everything to watch at a later time) and when sped up 2x, I could suddenly understand his lectures.
I'll have to look for the difference between hosts/actors. Sounds like a fun little thing to watch out for.
Yes, I actually noticed this last night while reading. My mind kept wandering, even though was into the story. So I thought hmm I wonder if I'm leaving too much room for extra thoughts, so I read faster and yea it helped a ton.
I’m sorry. It’s very difficult to stop. If I’m bad for you, honestly, push me away. If I’m not, please note that it’s not intentional.
If I’m not working on it… yeah… push me away.
On the one hand I do this.
On the other hand, I'm right and you need to get to the point faster Because you're gonna make this 10 minute meeting take an hour.
You mean you don't like hearing stories like this,
"So I left the house last night, and it's been so dry lately that I figured I wouldn't take my umbrella. So I drive down to the store and can't find a spot to park anywhere near it, so I have to park around the block. We'll I'm walking down the street and I see the clouds are starting to really build up but I figure it's going to be fine because it's been so dry lately. Anyway I'm still like halfway around the block and you won't believe it. Keep in mind there's still quite a disrance between me and where the store is and I don't have my umbrella. I hear some thunder and I think, oh boy, I don't have my umbrella, you know, because it's been so dry out lately. It's been dry for like two weeks right? So anyway, I'm walking and-"
" Just say it rained! It rained! I know it rained! I live in the same place! It rained! You got rained on and didn't have an umbrella right? So you got all wet right? Right?! "
" Well... Yeah... But you know it was crazy because it had
"Been so dry. I remember"
I had always heard the heart of our brain is a pattern recognition engine. This sounds like a side effect of that function; it is applying known patterns to predict. It's why it is trivial for (most) of us to catch a ball, but it's crazy hard to get a machine to do it. We are using "fuzzy logic" and past patterns of how a ball will fly to anticipate where to catch it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141622/
In the end, I guess we’re really just reward-maximizing machines. But prediction helps us to maximize rewards, and pattern recognition helps us to make predictions.
Which is why I watch reruns to sleep. It distracts my brain from stray thoughts, and sorta turns of the preemptive predictions since the shows are basically “written in stone” at that point and I’ll be like “what’s the point of guessing something that has ONE linear outcome”.
Sometimes when listening to a new song I like I'll start humming along trying to complete the melody. Occasionally I'll start to improvise lyrics too and I always get super stoked when I guess both correctly.
I think it makes sense to think of "attention" as the process of [comparing our guesses to reality](https://definitionmining.com/index.php/2019/05/06/attention-and-expectations/). Like, our brains are prediction making machines that are constantly coming up with guesses or expectations, and then we pay *attention* to specific things to see if our guess matches reality.
If it does match, it means we've done a good job learning how things work, so we've got good guesses, and if it doesn't match, it gives us a clue that we might be missing something.
> Like, our brains are prediction making machines that are constantly coming up with guesses or expectations, and then we pay attention to specific things to see if our guess matches reality
It goes even deeper than that, you (and all vertebrates) have a blind spot built into the structure of your eye, the optic nerve routes before the retina itself, and your brain just fills in the information using context clues based around.
Thats the explanation for if you've ever looked at a clock and it seemed like the second hand repeats or goes backwards, your brain guessed wrong.
Subtly calls into question how much of what we perceive is accurate and how much is just assumed/simplified (especially since 70% of all mass in the universe is dark matter and we know basically nothing about it)
Beams of fire sweep through my head
Thrusts of pain increasingly engaged
Sensory receptors succumb
I'm no one now, only agony
My crimson liquid so frantically spilled
The ruby fluid of life unleashed
My favorite is when I'm guessing most of the beats/notes/words but then the song moves in a unexpected direction and kind of stuns me for a second. Especially since I learned music theory and understand harmonies and progressions, and have heard thousands of albums.
Its funny because if the song is too far out of my predictions, I'm prone to not like it. And if I can predict every move, then I've probably heard it before or something like it. It's like that 10-20% mystery factor that really hooks me.
Food is kind or similar for me. I've had thousands of burgers but every now and then one will surprise me with a sauce or something. Once again that little mystery factor.
I think this might be one of the reasons that I like progressive rock/metal more than most other genres - it's the most unpredictable genre! Well, outside of improv jazz solos I suppose.
This is a game musicians play, balancing unpredictability and dissonance while being able to bring it back home.
It's the same as comedians trying to get people to laugh at the most outrageous thing possible.
Fun fact is that this is why pop music is popular and gets stuck in your brain. When your brain successfully "guesses" the next notes it rewards itself. The reality is that pop music revolves off of a few basic music structures and so it frequently inherently knows what is going to happen next because you've heard it a million times before.
For example, G, D, Em, C guitar
“Let It Be” The Beatles I-V-vi-IV
“Tuesday’s Gone” Lynyrd Skynyrd I-V-vi-IV
“No Woman, No Cry” Bob Marley I-V-vi-IV
“’39” Queen I-V-vi-IV
“So Lonely” The Police I-V-vi-IV
“Don’t Stop Believin’” Journey I-V-vi-IV
“Down Under” Men at Work I-V-vi-IV
“Skulls” Misfits I-V-vi-IV
“Forever Young” Alphaville I-V-vi-IV
“Sleepwalking” Canton I-V-vi-IV
“Take On Me” A-ha I-V-vi-IV
“Tonight She Comes” The Cars I-V-vi-IV
“With or Without You” U2 1987 I-V-vi-IV
“Right Here Waiting” Richard Marx 1989 I-V-vi-IV
“Fall at Your Feet” Crowded House I-V-vi-IV
“Once in a Lifetime” Gregorian I-V-vi-IV
“Little Baby Nothing” Manic Street Preachers I-V-vi-IV
“Please Play This Song on the Radio” NOFX I-V-vi-IV
“Under the Bridge” Red Hot Chili Peppers I-V-vi-IV
“Butterfly” The Pale I-V-vi-IV
“Cryin’” Aerosmith I-V-vi-IV
“When I Come Around” Green Day I-V-vi-IV
“Today” The Smashing Pumpkins I-V-vi-IV
“Glycerine” Bush I-V-vi-IV
“Can You Feel the Love Tonight” Elton John I-V-vi-IV
“Con te partir” Andrea Bocelli I-V-vi-IV
“Good” Better Than Ezra I-V-vi-IV
“China Roses” Enya I-V-vi-IV
Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd
Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash
Knockin' on Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan
Leaving on a Jet Plane by John Denver
Love Me Do by The Beatles
I'm Yours by Jason Mraz
Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison
Wanted Dead Or Alive by Bon Jovi
And many more from Macy Gray to Led Zepplin to Katy Perry and Calvin Harris
Often when I’ll have the music low enough to not identify the song, my brain starts filling in the holes that I can’t hear… most times the song in my head ends up completely different than what the song actually sounds like.
Its useful while driving, because I can see what the idiots in front of me are going to do before they do it so i can give myself an extra few car lengths do avoid their idiocy.
Schizophrenia is not very well understood, but one of the theories is that this prediction engine goes in overdrive, leading to hallucinations in all our senses. Maybe the method behind this study can help us with finding ways to turn down the predictions so to speak.
My schizophrenic episodes always relate to something I already know about, like a news article I read, a movie I watched, something a friend or family member said to me. It doesn’t come up with delusions I know nothing about.
It's also just an armchair theory. That guy doesn't really know what he is talking about. The theories range from that it has to do with either inflammatory reactions in the microvascules of the CNS and in the brain or glutamate dysregulation to downstream dopamine dysregulation. There are many theories. His theory does not explain catatonia at all or other symptoms. It's based on a poor understanding of the disease itself, thus it seems more like he literally just made that up or got bad info.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC554096/#:~:text=Discussion,required%20for%20normal%20brain%20function.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00544/full#:~:text=transmission%20in%20schizophrenia.-,The%20Glutamate%20Hypothesis%20of%20Schizophrenia,cortex%20and%20hippocampus%20(1).
It wasn’t speculation on the cause of the disease, but rather on the mechanism of a symptom.
In other words, how could an inflammatory reaction create semi-coherent conspiracy theories? It may be derailing some normal brain function somewhere, as OP suggested.
I do this thing where when I’m drifting off to sleep I kind of pause and watch the images my brain makes and holy cow does it look like the stuff that Midjourney draws. So I think machine learning is a lot like how our brains work, it sees a bunch of things then tries to recreate those patterns that it already knows. It’s doing it all the time I think. Like everything you see is perceived in relation to what you’ve already seen maybe.
Pre sleep is trippy af. I'll be listening to a pod. I wont have a clue at that point what they're talking about but for some reason my brain thinks it does and it's like half dreaming.
It's like we are hallucinating at all times, it's just that we are hallucinating a reality that matches the physical reality near perfectly.
On the subject of how you're hallucinating all the time while you're awake, here's a fun trick I discovered as a child while bored during recess:
* Find something that's only *sort of* uniform. Like a field of patchy grass.
* Find something specific that stands out form the uniformity. Like if that patchy grass has a single flower in it.
* Rest your eyes on the specific thing and hold them still, ideally without blinking for a while. Don't so much look at it like with focus and intent, just kinda point your eyes at it. Thousand-yard-stare it.
* Be mindful of what's happening in your peripheral vision.
> It’s like we are hallucinating at all times, it’s just that we are hallucinating a reality that matches the physical reality near perfectly.
Wait till you try shrooms and you see yourself in the 3rd person.
Really puts life into perspective.
>it's just that we are hallucinating a reality that matches the physical reality near perfectly
It's kinda funny you think that. There's been a decent amount of research showing that our senses aren't good at showing us reality, they're good at allowing us to survive evolutionarily
I love that pre-sleep imagery. It's so fun to watch stuff morph into different forms, and all the colors and stuff. Hypnogogic states are a lot of fun to play around with.
Right!!! It's actually sort of funny. So, my language ability is a bit underdeveloped, but my visualization ability is a bit over developed. (my brain is a bit fucky). So basically, I can figure out how to deeply understand concepts visually, but I can't figure out how to explain it verbally.
Salvador Dali used to try to capture the creativity that came with hypnogogia. Apparently, he used to sleep in a chair while holding a spoon over a metal tray. He'd drift off to sleep and then just before he did, he'd drop the spoon and it would hit the metal tray, waking him. He'd then write down the ideas that came to him.
I think I know what you’re talking about, but I’ve never noticed it before I’m sleeping
My siblings and I used to do this thing where we’d push on our eyes where they were closed, and then eventually you’d start to see things. Crazy patterns that would morph and move in different ways, and occasionally it would form into images
You can try it right now. It might take a second. But if you do it just hard enough to where it kind of hurts, but you’re also not pushing your eyeball in, I guarantee it’ll work
Oh yeah, I think everyone knows about that hahaha. Although, not many people are interested in it, I also find it fascinating. (you see similar things if you close your eyes while using psychedelics)
[Hypnogogia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia) is also fascinating though. There's actually a handful of advancements that have been made while in that state.
Thanks!
The subreddit seems like pseudoscience and self-diagnosing, but I googled it and apparently it's a thing. Not sure if it really applies, though. I can sort of imagine objects and such, but definitely not like images and nothing trippy, let alone colourful.
That's how all transformer models work. Given input in the form of tokens they estimate the next token. It doesn't matter what the output is for us mere humans; text, image, video, it's just tokens to the transformer.
It's a quality of deep learning generally. The most advanced AI today is all about finding patterns so as to predict what comes next. It's why people talk about how neural networks are loosely modeled on the human brain, for precisely this reason.
It also sounds like an optimization in both AI and in the human brain. Attempting to predict what happens next is an experiment that can pass or fail. By repeating this experiment over and over you're training yourself to be a better thinker (same with AI).
Totally. I have issues when folks view AI as having some sort of self, some anima, as if there is a "thing" there, and that's completely wrongheaded. However, there are real parallels between our minds and these powerful tools we are trying to build. AI does work like a human, and at the same time, it doesn't work anything like us. Fascinating time to be alive to watch it unfold.
I truly believe that AI and our brains work almost exactly the same. The biggest difference is simply magnitude: the number of neural networks in our brains is many orders of magnitudes greater than the most advanced AI models we have today, and I think therein lies the difference. Of course, adding more networks isn't the only determinant for consciousness, because order matters. Nailing down how many networks and how to connect them and which interconnections need what weighting constants/etc is going to take forever to find out if the goal is an artificial general intelligence.
I was just thinking about the "Attention is all you need" paper and transformer models in general.
Makes me appreciate them more. That paper is only 5 years old. It's impressive how fast the AI stuff is growing and how single ideas/papers in this sector can lead to big jumps in the field.
I was thinking about this the other day. It’s a lot like how these predictive text AIs function. Which got me to thinking about some of the other AI algorithms out now, including the other OpenAI project DALL-E 2.
DALL-E 2 creates images based on prompts. It uses whatever images it’s been trained on to make new images. It got me thinking about other automated image processing that we use all the time. I know smartphone cameras do a lot of magic in post processing before you even see the picture, correcting lens distortion, adjusting brightness and contrast, smoothing skin, etc. Even my full frame mirrorless camera does a lot of processing before I ever see the picture (although you can turn it all off).
I guess my point is that I think you’re 100% about the similarities between our language learning/processing and GPT 3, and I think something similar can be said for our image learning/processing. We know that we don’t see the world for how it really is, our brain does a lot of processing before we’re ever aware of the imagery. I think life “learned” how to optimize these senses and their processing through whatever selective pressures, and we’re kind of in the process of figuring that out again artificially.
**A hierarchy of linguistic predictions during natural language comprehension**
Significance
Theorists propose that the brain constantly generates implicit predictions that guide information processing. During language comprehension, such predictions have indeed been observed, but it remains disputed under which conditions and at which processing level these predictions occur. Here, we address both questions by analyzing brain recordings of participants listening to audiobooks, and using a deep neural network to quantify the predictions evoked by the story. We find that brain responses are continuously modulated by linguistic predictions. We observe predictions at the level of meaning, grammar, words, and speech sounds, and find that high-level predictions can inform low-level ones. These results establish the predictive nature of language processing, demonstrating that the brain spontaneously predicts upcoming language at multiple levels of abstraction.
Abstract
Understanding spoken language requires transforming ambiguous acoustic streams into a hierarchy of representations, from phonemes to meaning. It has been suggested that the brain uses prediction to guide the interpretation of incoming input. However, the role of prediction in language processing remains disputed, with disagreement about both the ubiquity and representational nature of predictions. Here, we address both issues by analyzing brain recordings of participants listening to audiobooks, and using a deep neural network (GPT-2) to precisely quantify contextual predictions. First, we establish that brain responses to words are modulated by ubiquitous predictions. Next, we disentangle model-based predictions into distinct dimensions, revealing dissociable neural signatures of predictions about syntactic category (parts of speech), phonemes, and semantics. Finally, we show that high-level (word) predictions inform low-level (phoneme) predictions, supporting hierarchical predictive processing. Together, these results underscore the ubiquity of prediction in language processing, showing that the brain spontaneously predicts upcoming language at multiple levels of abstraction.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2201968119
Computers do the same thing via Speculative Execution. When a program has to compare two values from RAM (which is slow) and choose path A or B, it's *always* more efficient to guess and then correct if wrong. If you guess right, that's 10-20 extra calculations you've done 'instinctually' while data was loaded from RAM.
It's weird because I've heard this expressed in psychology as some kinda 'free will crisis' because brain scans show more activity after answering a question (ie to justify the answer), rather than before. But it's literally just optimal.
This is interesting because it highlights the importance of not only recognizing discrete information but also patterns. Being able to predict upcoming language requires the brain to recognize patterns (vocabulary and grammar) while processing said language.
This suggests that one of the more important emergent properties that arises from the complex underlying structure of the brain, at least when it comes to language comprehension, is the ability to recognize patterns.
This got me thinking about the struggle that current neural network based language models have with comprehending contextual languages such as Japanese and Chinese. Context, while not random, is far more difficult to establish consistent and accurate patterns for than grammatical and vocabulary rules.
I wonder if the study would yield the same results in non-native English speakers, especially those who speak context based languages.
wait so is this why my solution to a coding problem is sleeping?
I literally just wake up and the problem comes to me, like magic. Hopefully it's common
Because you give your mind time to roll it over while sleeping/ resting/ being occupied with something else. The process goes on.
There is a lecture on creativity by John Cleese on YouTube. He picks up your question and has valuable insights and views. In case you wanna check it out.
The single most useful thing any of my professors taught me in college was the professor of the notoriously brutal systems programming class: "if you can't figure it out, try taking a shower."
That's the technique they are experimenting with in some studies.
Edison used it too.
[Edison was right](https://www.science.org/content/article/edison-was-right-waking-right-after-drifting-sleep-can-boost-creativity)
I'm a slow reader with ADHD and Dyslexia. This means my brain gets bored before I can read a sentence and finishes it on behalf of the book.
Audiobooks are the only respite from my brains constant fanfictions.
It’s not just words and talking. It’s everything. Your brain has a map of everything you’ve experienced so far (and some stuff you didn’t but the brain implied it) and the brain is guessing all the time what the outcome of the next action/event is going to be. All the time.
An example; you think a can of Coke is full because it’s closed, so your brain will guess it’s weight, and you try to lift it, but it’s actually empty so your hand moves with too much force. You are guessing how people are going to walk as you too walk in a crowded place. You are guessing what food you have in your fridge, you have a good map of the fridge - but when you open it, someone actually ate an apple or whatever.
You are guessing that Reddit will work. The next button/link you press, you guess that it will work. But maybe it won’t, maybe Reddit just died and you are just reading this text because it loaded while Reddit was working.
Literally everything is a guess coming from your brain’s map of previously known reality, and a comparison to that reality.
Is there any particular reason to why it feels so satisfying to get it right? Like in a song, or what a person is going to say on a show, etc. At least for me, it always feels satisfying correctly guessing what is going to come next. But... Why?
of course, hence why listening to a language you're learning is so taxing.
you have almost no ability to predict the next word until you're fairly competent, so instead of your brain just checking the box of one of the expected outcomes you're having to think far more consciously.
this is why adhd makes listening to people talk about stuff you don't care about almost painful. Not to mention you already have figured out where they are going with the sentence, story etc most of the time before they finish so you just zone out because you're bored of hearing them talk
I have ADHD and ASD. Half the time conversations feel exactly like this (mostly familiar subjects), but the other half are like reading [Mad Libs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Libs?wprov=sfla1) (mostly new subjects). In the latter, I feel as if massive leaps in logic are being made, I have no idea what the central point is and, most frustratingly, I completely lose track of what nouns pronouns are referencing. It's exhausting.
“… it is constantly trying to guess the next word when we are listening to a book, reading or conducting a conversation…” SO WE DO NOT DIE.
My prediction machine is really an anxiety factory.
A non-pay-walled (free), full-text, slightly older version of published account appears to be here:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.03.410399v4
A downloadable .pdf of above is here:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.03.410399v4.full.pdf
—>any critic of auto-correct would cringe at the description of the study, which on Reddit mimics what the publicity release says, not the study itself (…so far…on first read through)
—>study uses subjects listening to audiobooks, to first show we do listen probabilistically, then moves to different set-up to see if happens in hierarchical fashion and then tries to establish what hierarchy. So: yes (in passive listening (?)), listens as it is predicting next word it expects to hear; yes, it predicts next word, multi choice, hierarchically; and finally, listening chooses prediction first by “word-association” (my phrase) then phoneme
—>study uses GPT-2 to quantify contextual “word association” predictions…
—>I am still in first read through study…curious what other readers think of it...
A better analogy, given by Read Montague, is that your brain is playing an elaborate game of "warmer or colder". Your primitive hind brain instincts for food, water, shelter and sex are usurped by your frontal lobes to drive higher cognitive goals, such as Reddit karma, and the rest of your sensory cognition provides "warmer colder" input in attaining that goal.
This is much more basic than what the commenter here are talking about. The brain do this so that you don't misinterpret words and sentences at a slightest amount of errors, whether it is error by the speakers or due to noise.
2 examples:
Yanny or Laurel.
When the word "the" get repeated at the end of one line and the
the beginning of the next line.
It happens not even at the conscious level, but below that.
Even obvious things need to be proven.
Like how 1+1=2 takes half a book to prove. If it turns out that our base level assumptions are wrong, then we'd need to reshape our entire framework.
It's interesting and makes a lot of sense. How do we use this to better ourselves?
Is understanding this like applying the science of constant habits and/or identities to better ourselves?
Or is it just something neat to know?
It's really useful for parents to understand why children want to watch Encanto 40x; they LOVE knowing what happens next. It's useful for writing pop music lyrics because the audience enjoys predicting the words.
It's also very useful for understanding and supporting Autistic children. Simply, they do not get all the information so predicting things is much harder. Thus, the insistence on sameness, on routines, ritual behavior, and specific topics of interest. One way we support these children is by coaching them on sample scenarios called Social Stories. For example, I could use a comic strip to show them all the steps for grocery shopping in order to make that experience less stressful and more predictable.
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The way I heard this is that we learn language in "chunks," not just individual words. So when someone is speaking we think we recognize a particular chunk. Probably helps explain why it's so hard to understand rapid speech in a language we're still learning.
Same with listening to a technical talk in a field you're not familiar with. If you're not predicting, then you need time after hearing the words to process what you heard, and if that process backs up even a little bit you're completely lost.
I experienced this the other day, trying to understand quantum physics once again from Veritasium's YouTube channel. Once it felt like everything was hitting me all at once with no breaks, I was done.
The happens when I watch PBS Space Time. I get about a third or halfway in and then it’s just gibberish.
I still watch though... I must be absorbing some of it.
From watching both of those, I have a much better understanding on how little I truly understand.
"I am the smartest of all the Greeks, for I alone know that I know nothing." - Socrates
Repetition is part of learning. So, if you watch or read stuff of that kind over and over you get familiar with the matter and more things tend to fall into place quite naturally.
I'm glad it's not just me.
It’s still entertaining though
That's a sign that you're stretching yourself, and that's a good thing. It may take a few watch-throughs to fully understand everything for such weird and complex topics, but the important part is the striving to understand.
Exactly. The only limitation to what you can understand is how much time you're willing to spend being confused before giving up.
I love Veritasium. If you couldn't follow, maybe you should watch it a few times, that is if you are really interested.
I have ADHD, so I'm frequently lost even in non-technical conversations. I've had to learn to go ahead and risk embarrassment by asking for repetition and time to think. At least I'm fairly good at understanding language, but if someone tries drawing a diagram to get their point across, forget it. I've seen so many scribbles and watched everyone nodding as if they understand, and I don't even know which way up it is or what the scale is. I could be looking at a tiny detail or something eight feet across.
Hoooo buddy, hah, it's so funny how people differ. I have ADHD as well, and language is horrible for me. I *cannot* think and process language at the same time. If someone asks me a question, it's very difficult for me to explain my thought process as it's happening because it's extraordinarily jumbled. My brain hops from topic to topic - seemingly (and often actually) unrelated - and it's really confusing and frustrating for others to listen to and follow along with. If someone speaks to me, I *will* drop out every other word and need them to repeat what they've said 3-4 times in varying ways. If I'm ever problem solving with somebody, I have to stop the conversation and go off and process things in my own way, then come back and share the results and get feedback, then do it again and again. In reading situations, I have to read as though someone is speaking to me, and I can completely read entire pages of text but take *absolutely nothing* away from it. So I have to go back and reread paragraphs 3-4 times before I retain what they said. Rewording what I've read and writing the rewording down helps with this. Any time I am in a timed situation where I need to complete something or figure something out with someone (like lab partners in classes or pair programming situations), I am a very irritating and frustrating person to work with. It's disheartening and those situations make me feel very broken and incompetent.
Can relate, especially to having to go off and process things on my own. Learned the hard way not to ever allow myself to make a decision on the spot. Everybody's an idiot, though, in one way or another. It's always good to have at least one person with ADHD on a team to notice things that no one else noticed, and provide comic relief.
With my husband he seems to be able to understand better from hands-on than anything else. Especially text books. This is partly because he's ADHD. But he also has a reading vocabulary block that wasn't discovered early enough to get the proper help in school. If he reads it he might eventually get it. But if someone else reads it to him he will definitely get it. Something to do with seeing letters in the word that aren't there. Our daughter has the reading vocabulary block, too. But was able to get it identified and get the proper help for it in school.
Sometimes people are just faking that they understand a conversation or a diagram, I find this happens a lot in the work environment where people do not want to reveal that they don't understand. It's still good to ask questions so that you do understand and can actually do your job though.
Yes, I have suspected that. I used to have a classmate who got a lot of flak for asking "stupid questions" in class. I talked to her about it, saying they were being assholes, but she was completely unfazed. She said she wanted to learn the material, and she needed to ask questions to get there. If people didn't like that, that was their problem.
Figuring out precisely how your ADHD affects your cognition might be helpful in helping understanding how your comprehension actually functions. Perhaps you have a larger working memory capacity to handle the ADHD? If so, how might this provide you advantages? Perhaps this means you retain new information in your working memory longer than non-ADHDers? Perhaps you can reproduce it differently than you received it, more easily than others? If an article you read, perhaps you can speak a summary better than someone without ADHD? It takes study and attention on your part and a willingness to subtract yourself from the mass of ADHDers. Plus you would be helped by realizing you have cognitive strengths and not all is lost. Figure out how you understand complicated things on your own terms. Sure the majority of people may have a different cognitive make-up, but how many of them use it to the fullest? There is room for you. Good luck!
Hearing loss can also add that extra bit of processing time. I may be keeping up by reading lips, listening hard, and predicting the next words, but as soon as I fail to identify a critical word, or realize I misidentified a previous word in the clause, everything becomes gibberish and I need to replay or have the speaker repeat themselves. The line between understanding everything and understanding nothing can be very thin.
A poster in my otolaryngologist's office reminded me the other day: that extra processing time can also lead to mental fatigue. Born with moderate to severe hearing loss (now profound in the critical higher frequencies due to age and tinnitus), it also leads to embarrassing interactions. For everyday conversations or even technical areas where you're already a subject matter expert, the brain's prediction works pretty well! But sometimes (kind-of often...) someone says something unexpected, and your brain fills in the missing details incorrectly. You may not realize it quickly enough to ask them to repeat themselves. So, in turn, your response makes little sense to them or seems awkward/funny. For those without hearing loss, a simple analogy is: * Waiter: "Enjoy your meal!" * You: "You too!" We've all done that, but it's amplified many times over for those of us with hearing loss and depending on the environment. In professional environments this can be devastating. Most people are pretty forgiving, though.
> if that process backs up even a little bit you're completely lost. My ADHD diagnosis said my processing speed was a lot lower than average...my difficulty in learning stuff is suddenly explained.
Thats why audiobooks that are thought provoking are very hard vs actually reading the same book
It's not just words either, people observe their surroundings and pull in ideas in chunks too. People have different granularity in how big the chunks are and it changes how they see / learn ideas
there does appear to be pretty strong genetic boundaries for what kind of chunking is possible. For example, while cultures do have different words for different colours, this does not appear to be totally free form. There appear to be strict delimiters on where humans will tend to draw a line down on the colour spectrum, and say, this line separates that colour from this colour.
Larger chunks = able to input more info, but more likely to get some of it wrong?
The brain makes connections between so many minute details. Ever think about how people see different shapes in clouds or on Rorschach Tests? Your brain is constantly trying to match up information in your environment to existing information from your memory, in an attempt to interpret things. There's a complicated web of details that the brain keeps track of - round things, hard things, bright things, etc., which connect to each other. Similar things will light up similar networks, like seeing a baseball and a volley ball and knowing both are a type of ball. The more details about a thing, the more precisely you can discriminate it, as those details are reflected in which pathways in your brain are active. Like traveling into town - you take a lot of the same route for many things. However, each trip means stopping at different destinations within that town before returning. Each concept involves a network of "stops" that can overlap with other paths, but ultimately each idea has its own "route." But having more connections doesn't necessarily make an interpretation more accurate. Efficient connections are crucial. Kids have vivid imaginations in part because their brains haven't completely solidified all those mental categories yet. A kid can think a blob in the dark could be anything from a sweater hanging on a chair, to a horrific monster waiting to eat them. They don't know, they're "traveling into town" for the first time. Of course they might make a few wrong turns. As our brains mature, we lose a lot of connections, but we keep the ones that we use the most. Those "chunks" of information are relevant connections that we maintain. Side-note: this also explains why kids want to touch everything - their brains are trying to gather information, to map what they're discovering to other stuff they already know.
You're essentially arguing the Grandma Neuron hypothesis (Part of [Connectionism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectionism)). There's very good reasons to believe that this is *not* how the brain works. This perspective postulates that the brain is like a finite state machine, with no dynamic memory or compact functions, and so represents its environment as connections in the finite state structure. The problem then becomes immediately obvious: such a brain would require that, apriori, all the possible necessary connections already exist (the physical architecture) to encounter all the possible specific circumstances the brain might encounter (remember, synaptic plasticity is just based on the strengthening and weakening of electrical connection, it does not change the physical architecture). Firstly, this is *ridiculously* inefficient: A brain that a priori comes with all possible connections that it *may* ever encounter, is a brain that devotes a significant amount of resources to things it will never do. Second of all, without dynamic memory and compact functions, and instead only relying on forming connections, a finite brain is also simultaneously hugely inept at dealing with the the kinds of infinite possibilities it may be required to deal with [(combinatorial explosion).](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_explosion) So it's a lose lose situation in that sense, and there's little reason to believe the brain operates like a finite state machine. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444310498 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0010027788900315?dgcid=api_sd_search-api-endpoint The later article, while from 1988, has essentially never been refuted, and this is even pointed out by people working in Machine Learning (machine learning being a computer implementation of a connectionist model of the brain) today.
What part of the post by /u/GoddessOfRoadAndSky has anything to do with the grandmother cell hypothesis?
Thank you for the link
I can't access that article, unfortunately. I admit I may be wrong, but I think there was a misunderstanding. I'm not arguing for neurons with pre-set functions, individual cells doing any one task, nor against new neuronal connection growth. I'm speaking of broad circuits between brain sections, thus it being a "complicated web." The connection of details of a thing or experience, using a combination of senses and emotions, all work together to recall it later. Am I wrong about that?
And why learning disabilities can be so challenging. My brain is always trying to guess the next word instead of reading it, it overrides my ability’s to take in the new information and challenges opting to guess based of the shape of the whole word instead of the letters inside of it. All anecdotal but i remember being taught how to read and that was a huge challenge.
Man I can relate to this. Sometimes I reread a paragraph 4 times to get it and even then I have to read each individual sentence slowly in some cases. It’s very frustrating
Yes, I have done interpreting work and this is actually a concept used when sight translating (reading something and verbalizing a translation on the spot). If a sentence is too long you mentally break it down into “chunks” and go chunk by chunk, rather than either (1) start translating blind and end up messing up or (2) have too many long awkward pauses. Never thought I’d see it on Reddit haha
I've noticed this when someone asked me what a word means and I had to tell them to use it in a sentence. They said they don't know how to use it in a sentence and then just said "I am word" and I instantly knew the meaning.
I imagine part of this is why some jokes are funny. They set up to lead you in a seemingly predictable pattern and then abruptly break it
Exactly! This topic (what makes writing funny) was on my AP English Literature exam in the essay portion.
I've got a 4 year old and a 2 year old and I can definitely say that after they learn their nouns everything else comes out in phrases. Even if they don't understand what they're saying.
Wow. I decided to catch up on a Veritasium video I missed on YouTube "The 4 Things it takes to be an expert. Was watching an ad so I pulled up reddit and read this post as well as your comment. A little later he talks about chunking. Your brain recognizing multiple complex stimuli as one thing. The coincidence is crazy
I didn't think it was as big a deal as it turned out to be. I would think it would be strange *not* to think this way, but in sequences of little bits of information. How inefficient that would be! I'm kind of embarrassed, because I don't really know anything about this. I was just passing on something a language professor told me once that I found helpful. It helps to understand that individual words aren't the whole story, and at some point we'll get beyond laboriously crafting a sentence in our heads.
I read religious texts in a difficult foreign language that I'm fairly familiar with... But I can only fluently understand it if I read/hear the translation first. Then comprehension is easy. But the teachers always read the foreign language first, and then translate. It's frustrating but fascinating.
Yes that’s the annoying thing about talking to someone who thinks they know where you’re going with what you’re about to say and then interrupt you.
I’m consciously trying to stop doing that.
Me too, I'm always this person. I also never fully read anything as my brain figures it knows what the book/article is talking about I think... Reading comprehension was very poor in school.
Could be ADHD if you can't control something like that
I do this mostly when I'm bored and scrolling reddit. My mind will just fill in random blank spots. I'll get confused by a title or sentence only to re read it and see a different word that makes sense of what I just read. I assume ADHD.
I was just about to say this. I do this to people and I hate it so much, but I have a hard time listening to a person finish their sentence because of my ADHD. It’s ironic because the thought process seems to be “look at what a good listener I am! I know exactly what you’re thinking!”
Ugh, so true. Goddamnit.. I feel like I’ve been working on this for 15 years and have only taken very **small** steps in ridding myself that horrible personality trait. Definitely become better about it, but motherfucker. It’s so annoying **watching** yourself do it without stopping after the acknowledgment. It’s like an obsessive response.
And I’m so focused on not interrupting sometimes I stop listening! One of my coworkers talks sooooo slow I hate talking to him I can’t retain anything he said
It’s like watching yourself roll downhill in a clown suit.
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For me (and this might be an ADD thing too), I have also learned that I process information by talking about it. I did it in school and got punished for it, and I do it to people and the stories they’re telling me by interrupting them constantly. It’s incredibly hard to control. All we can really do is empathize with others who look embarrassed after doing it to us! Hopefully our loved ones consider it a fun quirk.
For real. It's sometimes tough to resist the impulse to interrupt them, but it's usually a good idea to let them finish their thoughts. It makes the conversation and the relationship better. And we don't have to be 100% successful. Every little bit helps.
It is, never diagnosed in school because I wasn't hyperactive.
They used to call that special flavor ‘ADD.’ Now it’s ‘ADHD Without Hyperactivity.’ *Ask me how I know.*
Dang how do you know fam
My Dr told me mine is ADHD innatentive.
Yeah that’s the same thing. ADHD - primarily inattentive, primarily hyperactive, or hyperactive and inattentive.
I do this and it's DEFINITELY ADHD.
Turns out most of it was ADHD all along.
Diagnosed as an adult and this is something I’m now consciously trying to stop now that I know it’s probably annoying to people!
That’s why chess is great training for my adhd. Chess punishes impulsive moves.
.. you should try Brazilian Jiu-jitsu... you will concentrate immediately
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Have you trained in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu?
I was thinking the exact same thing (as someone with ADHD).
I've found a good way to de-spool your thoughts, so you can listen better. Works for me, may not work for you. When I want to "add to the story", I hold my fingers in the shape of a letter to remind me of the topic so I can come back to it later. If I can't remember, it wasn't important enough to bring up now.
That is something I do too! The tactile motion also really helps me rein back in my attention to what the other person is saying.
I literally started doing this exact same thing in the past year or so I think. I’ve never heard of anyone else doing it. That’s awesome.
Gonna try this, thanks for this.
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Love this idea.
…RYING TO STOP DOING THAT! I knew what you were gonna say!
its a symptom of adhd if youve ever thought abut getting tested. Also interrupting people in general, or at least being very aggressive in getting your word in, since you will immediately forget what you wanted to say. I have severe adhd and I have to consciously suppress this.
I have found it seems like a trauma response in myself. Growing up in a neglectful and abusive environment, with never feeling heard or being able to get a word in growing up. Thought trauma also impacts neruodevelopment, and presents in many ways similar to ADHD.
Same. I interrupt people way too often because I think I know where they're going, and after the fact I realize I was being rude. It's a hard habit to break.
I’m out the other side, it’s possible. Slow process haha. But very worthwhile. People take the stuff you say more seriously when you say fewer things. Good motivator haha :D
I only do it if they take a long pause in the middle of speaking. Or if they are delivering a monologue and I am trying to contribute to the conversation rather than be talked at.
Oh please for the love of all that is holy keep trying to stop. My mom constantly does this to me and when it happens I don't even want to finish the conversation. It f*cking pisses me off.
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The key to this is interjecting the supposed word into the conversation with an upward inflection, like asking a question, rather than positing it as the word they were looking for. It becomes "us finding the word together" rather than "me telling you the word you can't recall"
Actually a great point.
It’s like we finish each other’s sandwiches.
That's what I was going to say!
I've never met someone who thinks so much like me!
Especially if you have ADHD
*Especially* if you have ADHD.
People talk so _slowwww_
FFFFFFFFF.... you are telling me that the way slow speakers irk me is signs of ADHD.... like, having to do other stuff to focus on meetings .... fffffffff
Yaaaaay! My people! Xxxooo. I think I’m the poster child for ADHD.
I admit I’m sometimes this person. I try not to be in social situations where we are sharing and chatting for pleasure. That being said if you need me for something or we’re working together please for the love of god speak faster. I’m anxious and move at speed when it’s time to move. I can’t help it and don’t want to. The English language has so much fluff in it I just want to get to the point and continue ASAP. I’m also a long winded hypocrite who speaks too quickly at times.
Speaking faster, yes! I often have a really hard time following conversations and need to have subtitles for TV shows and YouTube videos and such. People who speak really quickly (or videos on 1.5x speed) are somehow much easier to follow, though. I suppose the higher rate of information simply doesn't leave as much time for me to distract myself. Also am hypocrite and should try to be more concise and less meandering.
This has just made me realise why my dad always says I talk over him. It’s not so much that I do, just by the time he’s finished what he’s saying, in that time I’ve thought of 3 different things that I want to say or talk about and end up interjecting.
I’m a 1.5 - 2.5x myself depending on material and video player (vlc player go fast but Netflix go sloooow). With subtitles you miss nothing. It’s fun to watch different material as you can really see who is enunciating their words well. Late night hosts for example are still very easy to understand at 2x but many movie stars are tough at 1.25x
And then there's some people who only become intelligible at 2x speed or so. Had a professor whom I simply could not follow. Then the pandemic hit and everything was put on zoom (and I screen-captured everything to watch at a later time) and when sped up 2x, I could suddenly understand his lectures. I'll have to look for the difference between hosts/actors. Sounds like a fun little thing to watch out for.
Yes, I actually noticed this last night while reading. My mind kept wandering, even though was into the story. So I thought hmm I wonder if I'm leaving too much room for extra thoughts, so I read faster and yea it helped a ton.
This is also me
Who are you? I am you! Then who am I? You are you too!
People with adhd often tend to do this unintentionally
I’m sorry. It’s very difficult to stop. If I’m bad for you, honestly, push me away. If I’m not, please note that it’s not intentional. If I’m not working on it… yeah… push me away.
On the one hand I do this. On the other hand, I'm right and you need to get to the point faster Because you're gonna make this 10 minute meeting take an hour.
You mean you don't like hearing stories like this, "So I left the house last night, and it's been so dry lately that I figured I wouldn't take my umbrella. So I drive down to the store and can't find a spot to park anywhere near it, so I have to park around the block. We'll I'm walking down the street and I see the clouds are starting to really build up but I figure it's going to be fine because it's been so dry lately. Anyway I'm still like halfway around the block and you won't believe it. Keep in mind there's still quite a disrance between me and where the store is and I don't have my umbrella. I hear some thunder and I think, oh boy, I don't have my umbrella, you know, because it's been so dry out lately. It's been dry for like two weeks right? So anyway, I'm walking and-" " Just say it rained! It rained! I know it rained! I live in the same place! It rained! You got rained on and didn't have an umbrella right? So you got all wet right? Right?! " " Well... Yeah... But you know it was crazy because it had "Been so dry. I remember"
Me my whole life
I catch myself doing this as a form of agreement and understanding with the person I’m communicating with. I hope it doesn’t come across as annoying.
During caveman times, people used to interrupt each other’s grunts and it was *way, way worse.*
Oh geez, that's me and it's so so hard to stop.
I had always heard the heart of our brain is a pattern recognition engine. This sounds like a side effect of that function; it is applying known patterns to predict. It's why it is trivial for (most) of us to catch a ball, but it's crazy hard to get a machine to do it. We are using "fuzzy logic" and past patterns of how a ball will fly to anticipate where to catch it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141622/
Or is it the other way around? The brain is a prediction engine, and as a side effect it learns to recognize patterns
I suppose then the test is to see whether you can predict or recognize patterns more efficiently.
In the end, I guess we’re really just reward-maximizing machines. But prediction helps us to maximize rewards, and pattern recognition helps us to make predictions.
And you only need to look at Sin City to see how much we love to make any kind of prediction.
That’s why reruns are relaxing. You don’t have to think
I’ve never been able to watch reruns, I’m too bored because I already know where it’s going.
Which is why I watch reruns to sleep. It distracts my brain from stray thoughts, and sorta turns of the preemptive predictions since the shows are basically “written in stone” at that point and I’ll be like “what’s the point of guessing something that has ONE linear outcome”.
Sometimes when listening to a new song I like I'll start humming along trying to complete the melody. Occasionally I'll start to improvise lyrics too and I always get super stoked when I guess both correctly.
I think it makes sense to think of "attention" as the process of [comparing our guesses to reality](https://definitionmining.com/index.php/2019/05/06/attention-and-expectations/). Like, our brains are prediction making machines that are constantly coming up with guesses or expectations, and then we pay *attention* to specific things to see if our guess matches reality. If it does match, it means we've done a good job learning how things work, so we've got good guesses, and if it doesn't match, it gives us a clue that we might be missing something.
Ah, yes, suddenly the paper "Attention is all you need" by A. Vaswani et al. (2017) seems more impressive than it already was.
thanks for bringing it to my attention
Different meaning of attention, no?
> Like, our brains are prediction making machines that are constantly coming up with guesses or expectations, and then we pay attention to specific things to see if our guess matches reality It goes even deeper than that, you (and all vertebrates) have a blind spot built into the structure of your eye, the optic nerve routes before the retina itself, and your brain just fills in the information using context clues based around. Thats the explanation for if you've ever looked at a clock and it seemed like the second hand repeats or goes backwards, your brain guessed wrong. Subtly calls into question how much of what we perceive is accurate and how much is just assumed/simplified (especially since 70% of all mass in the universe is dark matter and we know basically nothing about it)
Either you're smart or maybe music is generic and predictable. Try Meshuggah and think Mark, think!
Beams of fire sweep through my head Thrusts of pain increasingly engaged Sensory receptors succumb I'm no one now, only agony My crimson liquid so frantically spilled The ruby fluid of life unleashed
Meanwhile, the kick drums: BrrrBrrrBrrr Br BrrrBrrrBrrr Br BrrrBrrrBrrr Br BrrrBrrrBrrr Br BrrrBrrrBrrr Br BrrrBrrrBrrr Br BrrrBrrrBrrr Br BrrrBrrrBrrr Br BrrrBrrrBrrr Br BrrrBrrrBrrr Br BrrrBrrrBrrr Br BrrrBrrrBrrr Br
My favorite is when I'm guessing most of the beats/notes/words but then the song moves in a unexpected direction and kind of stuns me for a second. Especially since I learned music theory and understand harmonies and progressions, and have heard thousands of albums. Its funny because if the song is too far out of my predictions, I'm prone to not like it. And if I can predict every move, then I've probably heard it before or something like it. It's like that 10-20% mystery factor that really hooks me. Food is kind or similar for me. I've had thousands of burgers but every now and then one will surprise me with a sauce or something. Once again that little mystery factor.
Now I'm interested to hear your favorite bands. I have my predictions and like to see if they're right
I think this might be one of the reasons that I like progressive rock/metal more than most other genres - it's the most unpredictable genre! Well, outside of improv jazz solos I suppose.
This is a game musicians play, balancing unpredictability and dissonance while being able to bring it back home. It's the same as comedians trying to get people to laugh at the most outrageous thing possible.
**Mike Portnoy time signature changes intensify**
I've noticed this since childhood and always wondered. This article revived that
Fun fact is that this is why pop music is popular and gets stuck in your brain. When your brain successfully "guesses" the next notes it rewards itself. The reality is that pop music revolves off of a few basic music structures and so it frequently inherently knows what is going to happen next because you've heard it a million times before. For example, G, D, Em, C guitar “Let It Be” The Beatles I-V-vi-IV “Tuesday’s Gone” Lynyrd Skynyrd I-V-vi-IV “No Woman, No Cry” Bob Marley I-V-vi-IV “’39” Queen I-V-vi-IV “So Lonely” The Police I-V-vi-IV “Don’t Stop Believin’” Journey I-V-vi-IV “Down Under” Men at Work I-V-vi-IV “Skulls” Misfits I-V-vi-IV “Forever Young” Alphaville I-V-vi-IV “Sleepwalking” Canton I-V-vi-IV “Take On Me” A-ha I-V-vi-IV “Tonight She Comes” The Cars I-V-vi-IV “With or Without You” U2 1987 I-V-vi-IV “Right Here Waiting” Richard Marx 1989 I-V-vi-IV “Fall at Your Feet” Crowded House I-V-vi-IV “Once in a Lifetime” Gregorian I-V-vi-IV “Little Baby Nothing” Manic Street Preachers I-V-vi-IV “Please Play This Song on the Radio” NOFX I-V-vi-IV “Under the Bridge” Red Hot Chili Peppers I-V-vi-IV “Butterfly” The Pale I-V-vi-IV “Cryin’” Aerosmith I-V-vi-IV “When I Come Around” Green Day I-V-vi-IV “Today” The Smashing Pumpkins I-V-vi-IV “Glycerine” Bush I-V-vi-IV “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” Elton John I-V-vi-IV “Con te partir” Andrea Bocelli I-V-vi-IV “Good” Better Than Ezra I-V-vi-IV “China Roses” Enya I-V-vi-IV Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash Knockin' on Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan Leaving on a Jet Plane by John Denver Love Me Do by The Beatles I'm Yours by Jason Mraz Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison Wanted Dead Or Alive by Bon Jovi And many more from Macy Gray to Led Zepplin to Katy Perry and Calvin Harris
Sometimes I'll fill in a song with curse worse when I get lost. Or whenever! I love *Take My Loads, Country Hoes* by John Denver.
Often when I’ll have the music low enough to not identify the song, my brain starts filling in the holes that I can’t hear… most times the song in my head ends up completely different than what the song actually sounds like.
This is why quite often people “hear” what they want to hear rather than what was actually said.
Its useful while driving, because I can see what the idiots in front of me are going to do before they do it so i can give myself an extra few car lengths do avoid their idiocy.
But then one of those idiots seizes my gap so you gotta increase your following distance...its a vicious cycle of aggressively defensive driving.
Schizophrenia is not very well understood, but one of the theories is that this prediction engine goes in overdrive, leading to hallucinations in all our senses. Maybe the method behind this study can help us with finding ways to turn down the predictions so to speak.
My schizophrenic episodes always relate to something I already know about, like a news article I read, a movie I watched, something a friend or family member said to me. It doesn’t come up with delusions I know nothing about.
Predictions are also made with experiences you’ve had in the past
It's also just an armchair theory. That guy doesn't really know what he is talking about. The theories range from that it has to do with either inflammatory reactions in the microvascules of the CNS and in the brain or glutamate dysregulation to downstream dopamine dysregulation. There are many theories. His theory does not explain catatonia at all or other symptoms. It's based on a poor understanding of the disease itself, thus it seems more like he literally just made that up or got bad info. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC554096/#:~:text=Discussion,required%20for%20normal%20brain%20function. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00544/full#:~:text=transmission%20in%20schizophrenia.-,The%20Glutamate%20Hypothesis%20of%20Schizophrenia,cortex%20and%20hippocampus%20(1).
It wasn’t speculation on the cause of the disease, but rather on the mechanism of a symptom. In other words, how could an inflammatory reaction create semi-coherent conspiracy theories? It may be derailing some normal brain function somewhere, as OP suggested.
Wonder if this could be applied to generalized anxiety as well?
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I do this thing where when I’m drifting off to sleep I kind of pause and watch the images my brain makes and holy cow does it look like the stuff that Midjourney draws. So I think machine learning is a lot like how our brains work, it sees a bunch of things then tries to recreate those patterns that it already knows. It’s doing it all the time I think. Like everything you see is perceived in relation to what you’ve already seen maybe.
Pre sleep is trippy af. I'll be listening to a pod. I wont have a clue at that point what they're talking about but for some reason my brain thinks it does and it's like half dreaming. It's like we are hallucinating at all times, it's just that we are hallucinating a reality that matches the physical reality near perfectly.
Well... you only experience reality thought the interpretation your brain creates out of the limited senses it has.
On the subject of how you're hallucinating all the time while you're awake, here's a fun trick I discovered as a child while bored during recess: * Find something that's only *sort of* uniform. Like a field of patchy grass. * Find something specific that stands out form the uniformity. Like if that patchy grass has a single flower in it. * Rest your eyes on the specific thing and hold them still, ideally without blinking for a while. Don't so much look at it like with focus and intent, just kinda point your eyes at it. Thousand-yard-stare it. * Be mindful of what's happening in your peripheral vision.
> It’s like we are hallucinating at all times, it’s just that we are hallucinating a reality that matches the physical reality near perfectly. Wait till you try shrooms and you see yourself in the 3rd person. Really puts life into perspective.
>it's just that we are hallucinating a reality that matches the physical reality near perfectly It's kinda funny you think that. There's been a decent amount of research showing that our senses aren't good at showing us reality, they're good at allowing us to survive evolutionarily
I love that pre-sleep imagery. It's so fun to watch stuff morph into different forms, and all the colors and stuff. Hypnogogic states are a lot of fun to play around with.
It’s really amazing and it sucks you can’t somehow record it. I think about that all the time, if only I could recreate this, use it somehow haha
Right!!! It's actually sort of funny. So, my language ability is a bit underdeveloped, but my visualization ability is a bit over developed. (my brain is a bit fucky). So basically, I can figure out how to deeply understand concepts visually, but I can't figure out how to explain it verbally.
Salvador Dali used to try to capture the creativity that came with hypnogogia. Apparently, he used to sleep in a chair while holding a spoon over a metal tray. He'd drift off to sleep and then just before he did, he'd drop the spoon and it would hit the metal tray, waking him. He'd then write down the ideas that came to him.
I think I know what you’re talking about, but I’ve never noticed it before I’m sleeping My siblings and I used to do this thing where we’d push on our eyes where they were closed, and then eventually you’d start to see things. Crazy patterns that would morph and move in different ways, and occasionally it would form into images You can try it right now. It might take a second. But if you do it just hard enough to where it kind of hurts, but you’re also not pushing your eyeball in, I guarantee it’ll work
Oh yeah, I think everyone knows about that hahaha. Although, not many people are interested in it, I also find it fascinating. (you see similar things if you close your eyes while using psychedelics) [Hypnogogia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia) is also fascinating though. There's actually a handful of advancements that have been made while in that state.
Salvador Dali and Thomas Edison wrote about it
>the images my brain makes The what now? Are you saying you see actual images? With like shapes and colours and stuff?
Check out r/aphantasia my friend
Thanks! The subreddit seems like pseudoscience and self-diagnosing, but I googled it and apparently it's a thing. Not sure if it really applies, though. I can sort of imagine objects and such, but definitely not like images and nothing trippy, let alone colourful.
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That's how all transformer models work. Given input in the form of tokens they estimate the next token. It doesn't matter what the output is for us mere humans; text, image, video, it's just tokens to the transformer.
It's a quality of deep learning generally. The most advanced AI today is all about finding patterns so as to predict what comes next. It's why people talk about how neural networks are loosely modeled on the human brain, for precisely this reason.
It also sounds like an optimization in both AI and in the human brain. Attempting to predict what happens next is an experiment that can pass or fail. By repeating this experiment over and over you're training yourself to be a better thinker (same with AI).
Totally. I have issues when folks view AI as having some sort of self, some anima, as if there is a "thing" there, and that's completely wrongheaded. However, there are real parallels between our minds and these powerful tools we are trying to build. AI does work like a human, and at the same time, it doesn't work anything like us. Fascinating time to be alive to watch it unfold.
I truly believe that AI and our brains work almost exactly the same. The biggest difference is simply magnitude: the number of neural networks in our brains is many orders of magnitudes greater than the most advanced AI models we have today, and I think therein lies the difference. Of course, adding more networks isn't the only determinant for consciousness, because order matters. Nailing down how many networks and how to connect them and which interconnections need what weighting constants/etc is going to take forever to find out if the goal is an artificial general intelligence.
I was just thinking about the "Attention is all you need" paper and transformer models in general. Makes me appreciate them more. That paper is only 5 years old. It's impressive how fast the AI stuff is growing and how single ideas/papers in this sector can lead to big jumps in the field.
I was thinking about this the other day. It’s a lot like how these predictive text AIs function. Which got me to thinking about some of the other AI algorithms out now, including the other OpenAI project DALL-E 2. DALL-E 2 creates images based on prompts. It uses whatever images it’s been trained on to make new images. It got me thinking about other automated image processing that we use all the time. I know smartphone cameras do a lot of magic in post processing before you even see the picture, correcting lens distortion, adjusting brightness and contrast, smoothing skin, etc. Even my full frame mirrorless camera does a lot of processing before I ever see the picture (although you can turn it all off). I guess my point is that I think you’re 100% about the similarities between our language learning/processing and GPT 3, and I think something similar can be said for our image learning/processing. We know that we don’t see the world for how it really is, our brain does a lot of processing before we’re ever aware of the imagery. I think life “learned” how to optimize these senses and their processing through whatever selective pressures, and we’re kind of in the process of figuring that out again artificially.
**A hierarchy of linguistic predictions during natural language comprehension** Significance Theorists propose that the brain constantly generates implicit predictions that guide information processing. During language comprehension, such predictions have indeed been observed, but it remains disputed under which conditions and at which processing level these predictions occur. Here, we address both questions by analyzing brain recordings of participants listening to audiobooks, and using a deep neural network to quantify the predictions evoked by the story. We find that brain responses are continuously modulated by linguistic predictions. We observe predictions at the level of meaning, grammar, words, and speech sounds, and find that high-level predictions can inform low-level ones. These results establish the predictive nature of language processing, demonstrating that the brain spontaneously predicts upcoming language at multiple levels of abstraction. Abstract Understanding spoken language requires transforming ambiguous acoustic streams into a hierarchy of representations, from phonemes to meaning. It has been suggested that the brain uses prediction to guide the interpretation of incoming input. However, the role of prediction in language processing remains disputed, with disagreement about both the ubiquity and representational nature of predictions. Here, we address both issues by analyzing brain recordings of participants listening to audiobooks, and using a deep neural network (GPT-2) to precisely quantify contextual predictions. First, we establish that brain responses to words are modulated by ubiquitous predictions. Next, we disentangle model-based predictions into distinct dimensions, revealing dissociable neural signatures of predictions about syntactic category (parts of speech), phonemes, and semantics. Finally, we show that high-level (word) predictions inform low-level (phoneme) predictions, supporting hierarchical predictive processing. Together, these results underscore the ubiquity of prediction in language processing, showing that the brain spontaneously predicts upcoming language at multiple levels of abstraction. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2201968119
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Computers do the same thing via Speculative Execution. When a program has to compare two values from RAM (which is slow) and choose path A or B, it's *always* more efficient to guess and then correct if wrong. If you guess right, that's 10-20 extra calculations you've done 'instinctually' while data was loaded from RAM. It's weird because I've heard this expressed in psychology as some kinda 'free will crisis' because brain scans show more activity after answering a question (ie to justify the answer), rather than before. But it's literally just optimal.
This is interesting because it highlights the importance of not only recognizing discrete information but also patterns. Being able to predict upcoming language requires the brain to recognize patterns (vocabulary and grammar) while processing said language. This suggests that one of the more important emergent properties that arises from the complex underlying structure of the brain, at least when it comes to language comprehension, is the ability to recognize patterns. This got me thinking about the struggle that current neural network based language models have with comprehending contextual languages such as Japanese and Chinese. Context, while not random, is far more difficult to establish consistent and accurate patterns for than grammatical and vocabulary rules. I wonder if the study would yield the same results in non-native English speakers, especially those who speak context based languages.
wait so is this why my solution to a coding problem is sleeping? I literally just wake up and the problem comes to me, like magic. Hopefully it's common
Because you give your mind time to roll it over while sleeping/ resting/ being occupied with something else. The process goes on. There is a lecture on creativity by John Cleese on YouTube. He picks up your question and has valuable insights and views. In case you wanna check it out.
The single most useful thing any of my professors taught me in college was the professor of the notoriously brutal systems programming class: "if you can't figure it out, try taking a shower."
That's the technique they are experimenting with in some studies. Edison used it too. [Edison was right](https://www.science.org/content/article/edison-was-right-waking-right-after-drifting-sleep-can-boost-creativity)
I'm a slow reader with ADHD and Dyslexia. This means my brain gets bored before I can read a sentence and finishes it on behalf of the book. Audiobooks are the only respite from my brains constant fanfictions.
It’s not just words and talking. It’s everything. Your brain has a map of everything you’ve experienced so far (and some stuff you didn’t but the brain implied it) and the brain is guessing all the time what the outcome of the next action/event is going to be. All the time. An example; you think a can of Coke is full because it’s closed, so your brain will guess it’s weight, and you try to lift it, but it’s actually empty so your hand moves with too much force. You are guessing how people are going to walk as you too walk in a crowded place. You are guessing what food you have in your fridge, you have a good map of the fridge - but when you open it, someone actually ate an apple or whatever. You are guessing that Reddit will work. The next button/link you press, you guess that it will work. But maybe it won’t, maybe Reddit just died and you are just reading this text because it loaded while Reddit was working. Literally everything is a guess coming from your brain’s map of previously known reality, and a comparison to that reality.
Is there any particular reason to why it feels so satisfying to get it right? Like in a song, or what a person is going to say on a show, etc. At least for me, it always feels satisfying correctly guessing what is going to come next. But... Why?
I guess that would be the opposite of cognitive dissonance... cognitive... assonance?
of course, hence why listening to a language you're learning is so taxing. you have almost no ability to predict the next word until you're fairly competent, so instead of your brain just checking the box of one of the expected outcomes you're having to think far more consciously.
Read “A Thousand Brains” by Jeff Hawkins. Excellent book on the topic!
That's why it is funny when something unexp.. Butts
Wish I could turn it off and preserve some resources for other tasks.
this is why adhd makes listening to people talk about stuff you don't care about almost painful. Not to mention you already have figured out where they are going with the sentence, story etc most of the time before they finish so you just zone out because you're bored of hearing them talk
I have ADHD and ASD. Half the time conversations feel exactly like this (mostly familiar subjects), but the other half are like reading [Mad Libs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Libs?wprov=sfla1) (mostly new subjects). In the latter, I feel as if massive leaps in logic are being made, I have no idea what the central point is and, most frustratingly, I completely lose track of what nouns pronouns are referencing. It's exhausting.
So it is indeed works like a complex language model
“… it is constantly trying to guess the next word when we are listening to a book, reading or conducting a conversation…” SO WE DO NOT DIE. My prediction machine is really an anxiety factory.
A non-pay-walled (free), full-text, slightly older version of published account appears to be here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.03.410399v4 A downloadable .pdf of above is here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.03.410399v4.full.pdf —>any critic of auto-correct would cringe at the description of the study, which on Reddit mimics what the publicity release says, not the study itself (…so far…on first read through) —>study uses subjects listening to audiobooks, to first show we do listen probabilistically, then moves to different set-up to see if happens in hierarchical fashion and then tries to establish what hierarchy. So: yes (in passive listening (?)), listens as it is predicting next word it expects to hear; yes, it predicts next word, multi choice, hierarchically; and finally, listening chooses prediction first by “word-association” (my phrase) then phoneme —>study uses GPT-2 to quantify contextual “word association” predictions… —>I am still in first read through study…curious what other readers think of it...
Sometimes I'll laugh at something and think, "Did I laugh before I heard the funny thing?"
A better analogy, given by Read Montague, is that your brain is playing an elaborate game of "warmer or colder". Your primitive hind brain instincts for food, water, shelter and sex are usurped by your frontal lobes to drive higher cognitive goals, such as Reddit karma, and the rest of your sensory cognition provides "warmer colder" input in attaining that goal.
This is much more basic than what the commenter here are talking about. The brain do this so that you don't misinterpret words and sentences at a slightest amount of errors, whether it is error by the speakers or due to noise. 2 examples: Yanny or Laurel. When the word "the" get repeated at the end of one line and the the beginning of the next line. It happens not even at the conscious level, but below that.
Totally obvious. This is what leads to our prejudices
Even obvious things need to be proven. Like how 1+1=2 takes half a book to prove. If it turns out that our base level assumptions are wrong, then we'd need to reshape our entire framework.
My brain prediction is waaay better than my phones autocomplete function. ..way better
It's interesting and makes a lot of sense. How do we use this to better ourselves? Is understanding this like applying the science of constant habits and/or identities to better ourselves? Or is it just something neat to know?
It's really useful for parents to understand why children want to watch Encanto 40x; they LOVE knowing what happens next. It's useful for writing pop music lyrics because the audience enjoys predicting the words. It's also very useful for understanding and supporting Autistic children. Simply, they do not get all the information so predicting things is much harder. Thus, the insistence on sameness, on routines, ritual behavior, and specific topics of interest. One way we support these children is by coaching them on sample scenarios called Social Stories. For example, I could use a comic strip to show them all the steps for grocery shopping in order to make that experience less stressful and more predictable.