system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is there a term for that delay when you hear something but don't understand it for a few seconds?
gpt
I don't know if there is a specific term for that delay, but it is related to sensory memory. When you ask your friend "what" and then realize a second later what they actually said, you are retrieving information from your sensory memory. You have sensory memory for each of your senses. For hearing, the term is "echoic memory", whereas for touch and sight, the terms are "haptic memory" and "iconic memory", respectively. What happens is, you brain retains an exact replica of the sound you heard, and for a very short period of time, you're able to retrieve that information by "replaying" it, even if your brain has not interpreted it yet. So if you're not paying attention during lecture, and your professor says something followed by "You should write that down!"... you use echoic memory to retrieve what s/he said, despite the fact that you weren't really paying attention before.