ELI3 this info

All right kiddo, imagine you have a big jigsaw puzzle. Each piece is like a word in a sentence. The regions in your brain that handle ‘Higher-Level Language Areas’ are like the parts of you that know how to put the puzzle together. These parts don’t just look at each piece individually, but they also understand how all the pieces fit together to make a complete picture. So, when you’re listening to someone talk, these brain parts do the job of arranging the words into sentences and making sense of them, even predicting what piece comes next to complete the picture you’re hearing.

Now, let’s talk about ‘Memory and Expectation’. Suppose you have a magic bag that lets you remember the pieces you’ve put together before and also gives you superpowers to guess what pieces you might see next. The prefrontal cortex, a part of your brain, is like that magic bag. It helps you to remember what’s going on in the story or conversation and uses that memory to guess what’s coming up next. When there’s a piece of the puzzle—or a part of speech—missing, your brain uses the magic bag to fill in the blank with a good guess based on what it knows so far. This makes it seem like you’ve heard every word perfectly, even if you actually missed some.

Now, what if there are ‘unknown possible negative modifiers’? Think of these like surprise traps or tricks hidden in our puzzle. Maybe some pieces look like they fit perfectly but actually belong to a different puzzle, or there’s glue on some pieces that makes them stick where they shouldn’t. If our brain runs into these traps while it’s guessing the missing pieces, it might make a mistake. For example, it might think a word was said when it wasn’t, or it might misunderstand the entire sentence because the guess was based on wrong or tricky information. The better our brain is at solving puzzles (or processing language), the less likely it is to be tricked by these traps, but they can still cause confusion or misunderstandings if we’re not careful.
Now ELI5 that info and make it lengthy
Okay, little buddy, let’s have a fun story about your brain and how it works when people talk to you. Your brain is kind of like a superhero, with special powers that help you understand words and sentences. It’s as if you have a team of brain superheroes, each with its own job, working together to make sense of the stories people tell you.

First, let’s talk about your brain’s “Puzzle Master” team. They’re the ones who handle what we call Higher-Level Language Areas. You know when you listen to a story, and you have all these words coming at you like a shower of LEGO bricks? Well, the Puzzle Master team takes those words and starts fitting them together, like building a LEGO house. They know which pieces snap together because they’ve learned the rules, kind of like how to build with LEGOs by looking at the instructions. They make sure every word fits in the right place so that the sentence makes sense, and even if a word is missing, they’re so good at guessing that they can fill in the blank without you even noticing!

But the Puzzle Masters don’t work alone. They have a buddy called the “Memory Maestro.” Now, the Memory Maestro is like a librarian who remembers every book in the library. This superhero lives in a place in your brain called the prefrontal cortex. It keeps track of the story you’re listening to, remembering what was said a few moments ago so that everything makes sense as the story goes on. Just like when you’re watching your favorite cartoon and you remember what happened to your favorite character in the last episode, this helps you understand what’s happening now.

The Memory Maestro also has this cool trick up its sleeve. It can kind of see into the future—well, not really, but sort of. It can guess what word or piece of the story might come next based on what it already knows. So, if you’re listening to a story and someone says, “The cat climbed up the ____,” the Memory Maestro might whisper in your ear, “It’s probably a tree, because cats love climbing trees!” And most of the time, it’s right!

Now, what if something sneaky happens, and there are “unknown possible negative modifiers”? That sounds like a mouthful, right? But this is where the story gets even more interesting. Think of these as little gremlins that throw wrenches into the works of your story-building LEGO set. Maybe they hide a few pieces or give you the wrong ones that look almost right. If these gremlins are around, sometimes the Puzzle Masters and the Memory Maestro might get confused.

If the Puzzle Masters are trying to put the LEGO words together, but the pieces don’t fit right because of those gremlins, you might not understand the sentence correctly. Or maybe the Memory Maestro thinks it knows what’s coming next and fills in a blank with a guess, but because the gremlins gave you a twisted hint, the guess is wrong.

This can lead to misunderstandings. It’s like thinking you’re getting a puzzle of a castle, but halfway through, you realize some pieces are from a puzzle of a spaceship! It’s confusing, isn’t it? Your superhero brain team usually works super well, but if too many gremlins are messing with the words, sometimes the story you understand might not be exactly what the person was trying to tell you.

But here’s the cool thing: your brain superheroes keep practicing, learning, and getting better at dealing with those pesky gremlins. The more you read, listen, and learn, the more powerful your brain team gets. And just like superheroes, they’ll save the day most of the time, making sure you can enjoy stories, conversations with friends, and all the wonderful words people share with you.