AIs encode language like brains do, opening a window into human conversations

Language allows people to communicate thoughts to each other, because everyone's brain responds to the meaning of words in the same way. In our recently published study, my colleagues and I developed a framework to model the brain activity of speakers as they engage in face-to-face conversations.

We recorded the electrical activity of the brains of two people while they were having unscripted conversations. Previous research has shown that when two people talk to each other, their brain activity becomes linked or aligned, and that the degree of neural coupling is associated with better understanding of the speaker's message.

A ...