Why do we say “huh” as if we did not hear what the other person said, but it gets processed 2 seconds later?

Question

Why do we say “huh” as if we did not hear what the other person said, but it gets processed 2 seconds later?

In: Biology

Answer 1

One cause can be that you heard the sound of what they said but didn’t process those sounds as language.

At the time of saying “huh? ” you haven’t understood what they’ve said but the sound of what they said is still in short term memory so you have another chance to process the sounds as language.

Then you do know what they said.