The revolution will not be controlled: natural stimuli in speech neuroscience

TLDR

Humans uniquely produce and consume complex language, yet most neuroscience studies use isolated words or simple sentences; recent work now employs naturalistic stimuli to probe language processing. The article argues that naturalistic stimuli provide advantages over simplified, controlled stimuli for studying brain language processing. Modern statistical and computational techniques can mitigate the downsides of using natural language stimuli.

Abstract

Humans have a unique ability to produce and consume rich, complex, and varied language in order to communicate ideas to one another. Still, outside of natural reading, the most common methods for studying how our brains process speech or understand language use only isolated words or simple sentences. Recent studies have upset this status quo by employing complex natural stimuli and measuring how the brain responds to language as it is used. In this article we argue that natural stimuli offer many advantages over simplified, controlled stimuli for studying how language is processed by the brain. Furthermore, the downsides of using natural language stimuli can be mitigated using modern statistical and computational techniques.