# Coherence in the brain unfolds across separable temporal regimes

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.20481 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.20481/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 57 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Dec 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [The Llama 3 Herd of Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21783/) (2024)
- [LLM.int8(): 8-bit Matrix Multiplication for Transformers at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.07339/) (2022)
- [Scaling Speech Technology to 1,000+ Languages](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.13516/) (2023)
- [TorchAudio 2.1: Advancing speech recognition, self-supervised learning, and audio processing components for PyTorch](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.17864/) (2023)
- [Large language models can segment narrative events similarly to humans](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10297/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

To maintain coherence in language, the brain must satisfy key competing temporal demands: the gradual accumulation of meaning across extended context (drift) and the rapid reconfiguration of representations at event boundaries (shift). How these processes are implemented in the human brain during naturalistic listening remains unclear. Here, we tested whether both can be captured by annotation-free drift and shift signals and whether their neural expression shows distinct regional preferences across the brain. These signals were derived from a large language model (LLM) processing the narrative input. To enable high-precision voxelwise encoding models with stable parameter estimates, we densely sampled one healthy adult across more than 7 hours of listening to crime stories while collecting 7 Tesla fMRI data. We then modeled the feature-informed hemodynamic response using a regularized encoding framework validated on independent stories. Drift predictions were prevalent in default-mode network hubs, whereas shift predictions were evident bilaterally in the primary auditory cortex and language association cortex. Together, these findings show that coherence during language comprehension is implemented through distinct but co-expressed neural regimes of slow contextual integration and rapid event-driven reconfiguration, offering a mechanistic entry point for understanding disturbances of language coherence in psychiatric disorders.