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We have some really powerful demonstrations of context effects in hearing. If you ask people to identify the last word in a sentence such as "the plumber fixed a drink", with the last word in noise, about 40% of young adults and 80% of older adults will report
hearing "sink". If you then ask to rate "how sure you are that you heard the word you responded with", older adults will give 100% confidence rating about half the time.
Mitchell S. Sommers
Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Washington University in St. Louis
Email: Msommers@xxxxxxxxx
From: AUDITORY - Research in Auditory Perception <AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Julia Strand <00000071c2dbe20f-dmarc-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 7, 2020 8:42 AM To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: Semantic McGurk Effect
I'm always delighted when auditory phenomena spark the public's interest!
I wouldn't call this a semantic McGurk, given that it doesn't have to be driven by simultaneous bottom-up input from two modalities. That is, even if nothing is written on the screen but you're just thinking "green needle" to yourself, that's what you're
likely to hear (whereas thinking "ga" while hearing "ba" won't get you to "da" - you need the simultaneous input from face and voice). So I'd agree with Roger that it's more akin to the phoneme restoration effect or work like Cynthia Connine's "she ran hot
water for the p/bath," showing how expectations influence interpretation of bottom-up input.
I think most of US wouldn't be surprised that the same stimulus can be perceived in different ways, but my impression is that the general public tends to believe "what you see is what you get" and underestimates the power of top-down influences. Same reason
#TheDress was such a hit.
When I include this in my class on speech perception, I also include this
video which shows Grover from Sesame street saying EITHER "Yes, yes, that sounds like an excellent idea!" OR "Yes, yes, that's a f*%#g excellent idea!"
Like I'm always telling my students - Speech is hard! Context helps!
Best,
Julia
On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 4:28 AM Prof. Roger K. Moore <0000011559506d60-dmarc-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Julia Strand, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Carleton College
One North College Street
Northfield, MN 55057
507-222-5637
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