If you're like most people, you probably rely on filler words like "um" and "uh" when speaking, whether you're presenting at work or talking to old friends over coffee. Use of filler words can be very ...

Everyday speech habits—including saying "um"—may offer clues about how efficiently the brain is functioning. Tiny speech habits—pausing to find a word, saying "uh" or "um," or losing your train of ...

People have woken up sounding French, Russian, or Irish, without learning a new language. Here’s what really happens when an accent changes.

Those of us who have cared for someone with Alzheimer's disease know all too well the pain of trying to communicate with someone who is losing their language abilities. People with the disease tend to ...

We don't usually realize it, but every word we speak depends on a series of complex brain processes working behind the scenes. One important part of this is speech motor learning, the brain's ability ...

Speech rate and word-finding difficulties, including pausing and use of fillers such as “um” and “uh,” were associated with changes in executive function across the adult lifespan in a new study. Jed ...

Researchers are increasingly finding that subtle shifts in everyday conversation can flag trouble in the brain long before classic memory problems appear. Instead of relying only on paper-and-pencil ...

Neurons in the brain's motor cortex previously thought of as active mainly during hand and arm movements also light up during speech in a way that is similar to patterns of brain activity linked to ...