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Updated: Mar 15, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
How long is now? The multiple timescales of language processing
Christopher J Honey1, Janice Chen2, Kathrin Müsch1
1Department of Psychology, Collaborative Program in Neuroscience, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada. honey@psych.utoronto.ca kathrin.muesch@utoronto.ca http://www.honeylab.org
Language processing involves hierarchical transformations, expanding the "Now" window at higher sensory levels. This suggests a hierarchical process memory is fundamental to understanding language.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Psycholinguistics
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Christiansen & Chater (C&C) propose language function as a hierarchical chain of transformations.
- Their model includes a
- Now-or-Never
- bottleneck for continuous input processing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To elaborate on the C&C model by examining processing timescales across sensory hierarchy levels.
- To propose the intrinsic role of hierarchical process memory in language comprehension.
Main Methods:
- Conceptual analysis of the C&C model.
- Theoretical integration of processing timescales and hierarchical memory.
Main Results:
- Timescales lengthen at successive sensory processing levels, expanding the temporal window of the
- Now
- .
Conclusions:
- A hierarchical process memory is integral to language processing.
- This hierarchical structure supports efficient and continuous language comprehension.
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