“…providing insight into what intermediary representations exist between the sensory input and sub-lexical units.”

For the “why is this interesting?”/“didn’t we already know this?” question: the title is an oversimplification. Yes, we know we hear sounds in sequence. The above quote from the abstract shows why it’s published in Nature—it’s a finding at the intersection between perception (the physical act of hearing sounds) and representation (knowing what those sounds mean and translating them into ‘mental images’). I.e., how do we translate arbitrary sounds/symbols into meaning in the mind?

We know a lot about both, but the task of scientists like these is to figure out how we get from perception to magic brain pictures. This is a step towards understanding that phenomenon.

Also, MEG is new-ish in psychological research (not really, but relative to other techniques. Plus it’s $$$ so there isn’t a ton of it. Again, relative) so it’s deserved attention. When we find the same thing we knew before, but with newer, better technology, it’s always good news. Converging evidence