By Vurdlak on May 9, 2011, with 103 Comments
Now here is a great find, Dylan pointed out to me. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of the McGurk Effect before (I haven’t), but in short, it’s a perceptual phenomenon which demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception. In practice, this audio-video optical illusion effect may be experienced when a video of one phoneme’s production is dubbed with a sound-recording of a different phoneme being spoken.
Perhaps, it might be best if I just let you watch this short, yet professional video BBC produced. It explains the whole deal, and includes some real-life examples of McGurk effect in action. Have we just “discovered” a whole new field of optical illusions to be showcased on this site? Could be… BTW, it might take some time before the video loads. It’s somewhat large, comparing to our previous video illusions!
(106 votes)
I heard the Yamaha “I wanna ride” ad, and silently I moved my mouth to say “I wanna Fly”
then it sounded like the ad was saying “i wanna fly”
COOL!
And this guy is a PROFESSOR?… It’s obvious for every phonetician that plosive consonants make unique “shock waves” recognized by our hearing, as opposed to the VAH. That’s not an illusion.
I find the narrator speaks only when he’s doing the Fah and never the Bah. Even if I don’t watch the video I hear an F. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve already seen it, but it’s generally when the narrator has spoken over the other sound.
I’m deaf in one ear, so the hearing in my good ear is heightened, so it didn’t work for me. Although the theory is there, the practice didn’t work. It’s very similar to a prank my dad used to do on me. I’d be eating an orange or banana and he would come over and put an onion under my nose. after that, everything I ate tasted like onions. THANKS DAD!
this is just baffling, though after most of the video, and concentrating very fiercely on the sound while watching, i was actually able to make the “vah” mouth make a sound vaguely b’ish. then the narrator started talking over and i couldn’t hear the sound well enough to do it. thank you a lot annoying British narrator…
THIS WORKED FOR ME. I CLOSED AND OPENED MY EYES REPEATEDLY AFTER HE DID BAH WITH THE F ILLUSION.
HOLY SHIET.
Reminds me of the seagulls in finding nemo…. lol…
Why cant i download or hear it using my mobile phone???
Can anybody helppp
plzzzzzz. . . . .
I heard the “Vah” thing from the start with my eyes open. I have keen hearing and I had to lean Spanish. I’ve got used to “b” and “v” sounds.
This seems so silly to me. The only example they could show was “ba” vs. “va,” which are such similar sounds anyway. If one’s teeth are close together and make a good seal, and one tries to make a sudden or hard “v,” the way the sounds are made, and thus the sounds too, are almost identical. Of course, you are going to choose the one it looks like he’s saying. Sheesh. They should show a lot more examples if they are going to use this to illustrate a whole concept.