Ok some elaboration. Today my father asked me a question and right when he finished the question I said “Huh?” indicating I didnt hear or understand the question. Right after I say that I answer the question before he repeats it. This has happened before and typically with a yes/no question. My question is, Why does this happen? Here are my ideas:
The sensory cortex receives the sound signals before the cerebral cortex. The sensory cortex perceives the cadence of the sounds to be a question but the cerebral cortex has yet to process and therefore in the interim doesn’t understand the question and therefore asks for a repreat. Meanwhile the cerebral cortex is figuring it out just as you ask for clarification and you immediately come up with the answer.
Another possibility is that I’m not in the mood for answering a question that requires too much thought so when the sensory cortex perceives a question the “Huh?” is sort of a protestation until the question asked is finished and I realize its a simple yes/no.
Ah! I do the same thing all the time! I really think I did not hear the person, it takes a second or two, and I figure it out I guess… I never went as far as trying to explain it scientifically! I just think we are not paying enough attention!
I do it when I hear but cannot immediately understand what the person has asked. I have found that I keep a literal recording of the last several seconds of sounds in my brain and can replay them at will. By doing this, I am often able to decode what the person asked by replaying this recording and listening to it carefully a second time. At least this is how I believe I do it.
I think Carine and Shagnasty are right. You don’t totally understand the question at first, so you automatically ask for clarification with the “huh?”. But your brain keeps trying to solve the puzzle and does so before the other person can give you said clarification.
Me: What colour is that car? David: I don’t know, red. Me: And what about that one? David: I don’t know, blue. Me: and this one? David: I don’t know, scary*
*[sup]scary=black at the moment[/sup]
I’m convinced that this isn’t just an affectation; I think he’s actually speaking his thoughts out loud; in other words, when he’s first asked, he doesn’t know, but when he’s thought for half a second, he does know.
i’d go with the majority and say that you have essentially heard the question, but there is a delay between hearing and assimilating the question.
i realize that when this happens to me, i tend to fill in the blanks sometimes when i haven’t heard the entire question, and using reasonable deduction complete the unclear or slurred parts myself, which is when i understand the question.
e.g. initially, i hear : where did you leave the slurred speech keys.
initial reaction: huh ?
immediately brain gets to work, figures that since we just got off the car and left some shopping in the car, slurred speech would be equal to car.
so ultimately, the brain retracts the huh, answers the question.
Understanding speach is a lot more than turning a waveform into phonemes. It requires a lot of context and understaning of the world. There are a lot of assumptions that my brain makes for me when subconsiosly interpretting speech.
For example, I may not be able to tell if you just said “book” or “pook” without any context. But if its part of a sentice, and I know that “pook” isn’t even an English word, let alone a word that fits into the sentence, my brain will automatically know that the questionable phoneme was a ‘b’ and not a ‘p’.
Anyway – I think its probably that I hear what was said but the speech is very slurred or I’m not paying attention, and there are a lot of questionable phonemes. My brain takes a while going through all the possibilities until it finds something that makes sense in the context.
Slight hijack. My wife does the opposite. She asks questions to which she really knows the answer. I’ve learned that if I just pause a moment before I answer, half the time she will answer the question herself before I need to. I assume she thinks that she doesn’t know, asks the question, then her brain catches up and she realises she does know.
I have a bad habit of asking questions then talking through the answer before anyone has a chance to answer it. I suspect it’s mostly the way I tend to verbalize myself. shrug Could be that ENFP thingie too.
You probably just say “huh” too much in general. It becomes your favorite answer. Lots of kids in gradeschool do that just so they have a little extra time to formulate an answer.
I’m a psych major, so I should know this stuff…
Basically, all stimuli pass through a sensory register before they hit Short Term Memory for processing (IE understanding language). This sensory register is small, and holds info for about 200 ms. So when you have a delayed hearing as you described, basically, you weren’t prepared to process the info right away, but as you said “huh?”, your brain was doing the processing for you. Hope that clears it up.
I’ve gotlots of kids, so I’m gonna bet that nearly all of you who responded to this post are 16 years old or under. I am fairly certain that you are correct…there is a lapse of synopsis there. Either that, or it is as I’ve always suspected- a lack of listening to anyone more than a month older than you are.
At work this phenomenon is so common, I have come to the point now, that I always pause for a bit before answering a request for a replay. In almost every case, the person responds to the original question before I begin. In addition, when people ask me questions to which I know they know the answer, I begin my response with a thoughtful pause. Again, in the majority of cases, they answer it themselves, usually posed as a question.
Example: “Is Jim here?”
I look around the nearly empty room for a moment.
"Would you tell him I was here, when you see him?
“OK.”
Tris
Rule of Reason: “If nobody uses it, there’s a reason.”
It probably means that you will die at the hands of your spouse. I know I want to strangle hubby when he huhs me and then answers. Learn to supress the huh and the world will be a better, happier, and safer place.
What kind of ‘huh?’ is it. I’ve noticed that I have three different kinds.
A medium sized one where my voice goes up indicating that I’d like to hear it again. Accompanied with an opening of the mouth and squinting of the eyes.
A very short one with no going up or down indicating that’s I’m surprised you asked that question and here’s what I have to say. No facial change.
Another medium sized one where my voice goes down indicating that is a very VERY good question and I’ll get back to you later. Pursing of lips and furrowing of the brow.
[verbose]My wife hates asking me questions as it sometimes takes me a while to respond (usually without the huh?). I tend to work through the question in my mind and analyze different answers in order to respond with the most accurate. The problem is that I don’t respond with anything until the answer has been formulated. I’ve had to resort to an interim response of “Processing.” to let her know that I’ve heard, understood the question and getting ready to give her an appropriate answer. [/verbose]
I just think we are not paying enough attention!