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

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.00457 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.00457/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 55 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 Nov 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [What BERT is not: Lessons from a new suite of psycholinguistic diagnostics for language models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.13528/) (2019)
- [Can ChatGPT Understand Too? A Comparative Study on ChatGPT and Fine-tuned BERT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.10198/) (2023)
- [Scaling Sentence Embeddings with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.16645/) (2023)
- [Testing AI on language comprehension tasks reveals insensitivity to underlying meaning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.12313/) (2023)
- [Why Linguistics Will Thrive in the 21st Century: A Reply to Piantadosi (2023)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.03228/) (2023)
- [Generative linguistics contribution to artificial intelligence: Where this contribution lies?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.20221/) (2024)
- [Enhancing Embedding Performance through Large Language Model-based Text Enrichment and Rewriting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.12283/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [AI tools in Arab University English classrooms: Looking back and forward](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.05403/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

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.