Researchers from Duke University and MIT discovered that part of our brains that is responsible for human speech recognition.
Until recently, the entire issue remained shrouded in mystery. It was already known that certain parts of the brain react to certain types of sounds and therefore are responsible for recognition, yet that region that is at the same time sensitive to speech timing and plays a crucial role in human language still remained under the radar.
One of the particularities of human brains is their efficiency in perceiving, producing as well as the processing of finely tuned rhythmic information. This holds particularly true for music and speech. Any musical sound type triggers a reaction in the temporal lobe’s auditory cortex.
The findings of the Duke University and MIT team of scientists, published in the Nature Neuroscience journal unraveled the part of the brain that is triggered when a rhythmic speech sound is heard. That would be the superior temporal sulcus, or STS. The STS is located in the temporal lobe. The revolutionary findings help settle a long-held exchange of arguments over role-specific neurological functions.
The experiment solved the riddle haunting neural science for decades. Yes, there are brain regions that are dedicated to recognizing speech as distinctive from music or animal noises.
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