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One of the topics I like to research and read about is how brains (especially my own) work

One of the topics I like to research and read about is how brains (especially my own) work. The recent one - how we speak different languages.

I found a couple of interesting papers. And what’s interesting is that more and more of them suggest the brain handles language in a way that’s closer to how LLMs work than we originally assumed.

Anyone who speaks more than one language knows what I mean. You don't build syntax trees... you basically predict what comes next/recognize patterns and constantly adjust in real time:

  1. Nielsen and Christiansen (2026 paper) found our brain learn common combinations of words and not just grammar rules. We recognize familiar patterns and then use them to produce language faster.

  2. Brain recordings and LLMs: Researchers compared how human brains and AI models process the same story. Deeper layers of AI models showed patterns similar to how our brains respond to language over time.

  3. 2024 EEG study. Our brains predicting non-stop which word comes next and when an unexpected word appears - your brain reacts. This happens in both monolingual and bilingual people. BTW, this is a mechanism behind of a lot jokes: setup - punchline (unexpected, your prediction fail) - reinterpretation (discovering of a different meaning and it ‼️makes sense‼️) - humor. A topic for a next article 😂

So hierarchy didn't disappear! We're predicting at multiple levels, recognizing patterns, and continuously updating our expectations.

The picture is a predictive system that learns local chunks and still tracks longer structure.

We spent decades saying LLMs can't understand language because they only predict the next token. Turns out, we rely heavily on prediction too.

One of the topics I like to research and read about is how brains (especially my own) work

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