Non-native speakers of English or ChatGPT: Who thinks better?

TL;DR

This study compares non-native English speakers and ChatGPT in processing complex sentences, revealing that humans outperform ChatGPT in understanding center-embedding constructions, highlighting the unique capabilities of the human brain in language processing.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that the human brain surpasses ChatGPT in interpreting complex linguistic structures, challenging the view of ChatGPT as a comprehensive language theory.

Findings

Humans outperform ChatGPT in processing center-embedding sentences.

ChatGPT cannot fully replicate human language interpretation abilities.

The human brain's language processing remains superior to large language models.

Abstract

This study sets out to answer one major question: Who thinks better, non-native speakers of English or ChatGPT?, providing evidence from processing and interpreting center-embedding English constructions that human brain surpasses ChatGPT, and that ChatGPT cannot be regarded as a theory of language. Fifteen non-native speakers of English were recruited as participants of the study. A center-embedding English sentence was presented to both the study participants and ChatGPT. The study findings unveil that human brain is still far ahead of Large Language Models, specifically ChatGPT, even in the case of non-native speakers of an L2, here English. The study concludes that human brain's ability to process and interpret natural language data is unique and that ChatGPT still lags behind this human unique ability.