Exploring the “McGurk effect”

Abstract

McGurk discovered that when a videotape of a talker is dubbed with similar but mismatched utterances, the optic information exerts a strong influence on the speech that is perceived, often without the observer's awareness. In several studies, we explored further the effects of conflicting acoustic and optic information on consonant perception. The following questions were asked: (1) Do subjects report a consonant even when no consonantal cues are contained in the acoustic signal (an isolated vowel)? (2) How is acoustic-optic place of articulation conflict resolved when acoustically specified manner (e.g., nasal, stop) restricts possible places of articulation? (3) How far does observers' awareness of acoustic-optic discrepancy reduce cross-modal integration? [Work supported by NICHD.]