In Milliseconds, Brain Zips From Thought To Speech

An unusual experiment is offering some tantalizing clues about what goes on in the brain before we speak.

The study found that it takes about half a second to transform something we think into something we say. And three very different kinds of processing needed for speech are all happening in a small part of the brain called Broca’s area, which lies beneath the left temple.

“They could see and hear. They could even understand what people were asking them, but they couldn’t answer back,” says Ned T. Sahin, a researcher at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego.

Read full story (National Public Radio)