“Why does human conversation come so easily? A new study chalks it up to a sort of “mind meld” between participants. Researchers have found that the brains of speakers and listeners become synchronized as they converse and that this “neural coupling” is key to effective communication.
Scientists have traditionally considered talking and listening to be two independent processes. The idea is that speech is produced in some parts of the brain, including a region known as Broca’s area, and understood in others, including a region known as Wernicke’s area. But recent studies suggest that there’s actually much more overlap. For example, partners in a conversation will unconsciously begin imitating each other, adopting similar grammatical structures, speaking rates, and even bodily postures.
This overlap helps people establish a “common ground” during conversation and may even help them predict what the other is going to say next, argue psychologist Martin Pickering of the University of Edinburgh and psychologist Simon Garrod of the University of Glasgow, both in the United Kingdom. Some researchers think that so-called mirror neurons, which fire when one individual observes the actions of another, might be involved in these interactions.”
Read more at Science Mag (Thanks @XLadyClaireX)
I even find myself unintentionally mimicking the accents of people I’m talking to, then catch myself doing it and don’t know whether continuing or stopping will look worse. What NLP twits call rapport I suppose….
yeah sure…we can all tell because spock was such a brilliant conversationalist.
~get up in your system and direct it like a symphony~
Guess it all started with “ug” back in the good ol’ cave days….