Huh?

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology say that the brain can recognize and decode speech, even if it’s played backward. “When you distort speech, it distorts certain aspects, but other parameters are still able to convey the message,” says Caltech biologist Kourosh Saberi. For the study, spoken sentences were recorded, chopped into small pieces, switched backward, and re-spliced into sentences again. Test subjects had “no problem” understanding the distorted sentences, researchers say. “What this tells us is that speech is quite robust,” says University of Wisconsin’s Prof. Ray Kent, who studies communicative disorders. “Somehow the information is preserved or at least recoverable to us even when it’s played backwards.” (AP) ...Llubtihs.