A nonspeech replication of the McGurk effect using pluck and bow stimuli

Abstract

A replication of the McGurk effect was conducted using nonspeech stimuli. The McGurk effect is a well-known phenomenon in speech perception that demonstrates how visual information for articulation can change an auditory speech percept [H. McGurk and J. McDonald, Nature 264, 746–748 (1976)]. The McGurk effect is often used to support the notion that a specialized speech module exists in the nervous system, which processes all information related to speech regardless of modality. In the current study subjects were presented with both consistent and discrepant audio-visual tokens of plucks and bows on a cello. Audio stimuli consisted of a continuum of tokens that ranged from plucks to bows. The tokens were dubbed synchronously on to a video image of a musician either plucking or bowing a cello. It was observed that subjects' auditory judgments could be affected by the visual stimuli suggesting that the McGurk effect might not be special to speech. These results will be discussed in terms of auditory, fuzzy logical model, motor, and ecological theories of speech perception.