> ... neural signals could predict upcoming words in a sentence. ... This kind of predictive coding is something we associate with being awake and attentive, yet it’s happening here in an unconscious state
In psycholinguistics, the assumption is, and always has been, that language processing is unconscious, a background process like visual object recognition. For starters, conscious attention is too slow by two orders of magnitude, and infants can process language, while presumably not yet (fully) conscious.
I remember one particular one a few decades ago, where I was feverishly (pun intended) trying to achieve something with XML, only it being a fever dream, nothing of it made sense, so I was wracking my brain for nonsense those entire hours.
(tangent) Also, please forgive my question which may seem impolite but I really want to know: why did you type "whilst" instead of "when" or "while"? Have you ever said the word "whilst" out loud, in a normal conversation? More letters, an extra (half)syllable, zero meaning or nuance added, I just don't get it. I wonder this every time I see it, mean no disrespect and would be grateful for a straightforward reply. (/tangent)
Sleep-learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep-learning
Also, Sleep and learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_and_learning