A team of researchers from the University of Berkeley, California has discovered that the brain, with regards to language and memory, works like a ship. This kind of activity is also the same reason why people find themselves finishing each other's sentences.
Have you ever wondered why you and your friends can finish each other's sentences very accurately? Or you find yourself doing the same thing with anyone you talk with unfinished sentences?
A group of scientists from Berkeley conducted the research to find out the reason behind the phenomenon why people automatically finish each other's sentences. The study involved 12 individuals wired with electrodes to monitor their brain activity while the exercise is going on.
After that they give the subjects a series of unfinished sentences afterwhich flashed the answers to those sentences. They saw that 10 out of those 12 people showed a synchronized burst of theta waves in their hippocampus if the activity has a strong association in their memories.
On the other hand, if the sentence has no obvious answer, the hippocampus works even harder trying to jog the memory for some association regarding that activity.
The discovery showed scientists what they have suspected all along that the area responsible for the memory, is very active. This means that the ability to finish the sentences of other people comes from the memories it has of language. The discovery also shows the close relationship between memory and language.
Robert Knight, a member of the research team, said that although spatial and verbal memory are linked together, they are like two ships running in the same area but unaware of each other because a thick fog covers the area.
With the discovery, however, the researchers hope that this will help future research understand the brain and its activities more.
