What's He Saying? 'Bahh' Or 'Fahh'? A Brain Mystery : Krulwi

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MrMark
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23 Sep 2011, 12:31 pm

What's He Saying? 'Bahh' Or 'Fahh'? A Brain Mystery : Krulwich Wonders... : NPR

"The question is: Which is more powerful, your eyes or your ears? Watch this clip and experience "The McGurk Effect." Your ears will feel ashamed."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/ ... in-mystery


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Sora
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23 Sep 2011, 2:09 pm

What illusion? I had to look it up.

I didn't think a language/sensory impairment could cause something like that. It is hard to believe "most" people really hear something else.


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23 Sep 2011, 8:20 pm

I get a hint of the illusion but it falls apart quickly. It's like... I don't know, the effect is pretty tenuous for me.

This one is a bit interesting:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtsfidRq2tw[/youtube]

I never heard "da da da" At first I thought he was saying "ga" but I heard "ba".



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23 Sep 2011, 8:48 pm

For the first part of the second video I didn't get anything but ah ah ah. I didn't hear da da da ever. Then they said he was saying ga ga ga and I didn't get that because I thought they were saying watch his mouth say ba ba ba in silence which made me further confused.



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23 Sep 2011, 9:56 pm

When I watched, I heard "ga". When I didn't watch, I heard "ba". I never heard "da", which was a surprise when he mentioned it.



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24 Sep 2011, 4:35 pm

I also hear "ba" in the 2nd video. I don't know what the lips are saying. That's the problem, I guess.


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24 Sep 2011, 4:58 pm

For the first one, I mostly heard "bah" whether or not my eyes were closed or if I was watching either mouth. For each time they swapped mouths to the one with the mouth movement of "fah" I heard "fah" for the first one and "bah" for the rest of the ones after that.

For the second one, the first time I watched it I heard "ah" no matter what until it was said what was actually said, in which case if I rewatched it I only heard "bah" even if I was watching the mouth.

I find the second one more interesting - except that it doesn't seem to work on me at all, while the first one works slightly. I think the first one is stronger because its a much more drastic change in mouth position. I'm curious if I would have had different responses if I hadn't gone through so much speech therapy as a kid. I actually think the illusion would have been even weaker if it wasn't for that, because I was actively taught so much and had to watch so much how to position mouths for different sounds.



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20 Oct 2011, 6:34 pm

I just read about this effect tonight while looking for a video to add an example to another post I made in another thread. This is the first video I came across about the McGurk effect (which I hadn't heard about before), and it happens to be much clearer than the other videos posted previously. It has basically a 19 second clip of a guy clearly saying the words with the video, so it is easier to loop a couple times to isolate the effect. It's really very clear; I mostly hear "the" (sometimes a bit of "ga," but never "ba") when looking at the guy but really clearly "ba" when not looking at him. I didn't find the effect in the other posted clips nearly as obvious, so you might want to try this one instead:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj-22YRuigY[/youtube]

I think the other videos are harder to see the effect in because there are many distractions, like the announcer's voice, and special effects are done with the video, like split screen. To use this video, just watch the clip as normal, noting what it is you hear. Then, look away while listening to the clip; you should hear something quite different for the exact same video footage.


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20 Oct 2011, 6:47 pm

I watched him the whole time: ba ba, ba ba, ba ba. No ga for me.



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20 Oct 2011, 7:03 pm

Interesting; do you perhaps have an auditory processing disorder of some sort? Perhaps something like this could be related to why some people, such as yourself, are not affected by the illusion. This research group link claims that the McGurk effect is a "landmark in the field of human sensory integration." I imagine it could also be related, then, to a difference in perception of facial features and facial expressions -- quite likely they could be processed quite differently in many/most/(all?) people with Aspergers (as difficulty reading facial expressions automatically is one Aspergers syndrome sign).

Side note: Personally, I had no issue with this video clip (it works for me), but I do with 3D optical illusions; you know, the kind where it just looks like random lines and colours and you have to look at it a special way to get the image to pop out in 3D. The only way I can get those to work is with much effort and sort of crossing my eyes.


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20 Oct 2011, 7:34 pm

dancing_penguin wrote:
Interesting; do you perhaps have an auditory processing disorder of some sort? Perhaps something like this could be related to why some people, such as yourself, are not affected by the illusion. This research group link claims that the McGurk effect is a "landmark in the field of human sensory integration." I imagine it could also be related, then, to a difference in perception of facial features and facial expressions -- quite likely they could be processed quite differently in many/most/(all?) people with Aspergers (as difficulty reading facial expressions automatically is one Aspergers syndrome sign).


I'm mildly affected, like Tuttle. I also do have auditory processing issues, but I haven't been formally diagnosed with that, and my perception of how bad they are varies almost daily. I don't feel like it's severe, but I prefer to watch TV shows and movies with subtitles, sometimes what people are saying dissolves into gibberish. This especially happens when I'm being given verbal instructions. It was so severely bad last Thursday that about half of what I heard made no sense, but that was partly due to lack of sleep.

Quote:
Side note: Personally, I had no issue with this video clip (it works for me), but I do with 3D optical illusions; you know, the kind where it just looks like random lines and colours and you have to look at it a special way to get the image to pop out in 3D. The only way I can get those to work is with much effort and sort of crossing my eyes.


Yeah, I have to cross my eyes for those illusions too. I thought that's how everyone did it.



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20 Oct 2011, 8:01 pm

Very poorly done. If they had wanted to demonstrate the effect, well, effectively, they should have shown the man mouthing "F" first. Still kind of worked, but not anywhere near as well as it would have had they shown the mismatched one first.


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20 Oct 2011, 8:01 pm

Verdandi wrote:
Yeah, I have to cross my eyes for those illusions too. I thought that's how everyone did it.


Apparently you're supposed to look into the distance with your field of perception, but focus on your near vision range. (According to these guys, at least, link and the people who published the book of these things I was trying to read a few years back.)

MrXxx wrote:
Very poorly done. If they had wanted to demonstrate the effect, well, effectively, they should have shown the man mouthing "F" first. Still kind of worked, but not anywhere near as well as it would have had they shown the mismatched one first.


Wait, are you talking about the one I posted? Isn't he saying the same thing for the whole clip? If not, perhaps I am also missing something else (although I get the "the" versus "ba" thing).


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20 Oct 2011, 8:05 pm

dancing_penguin wrote:
Apparently you're supposed to look into the distance with your field of perception, but focus on your near vision range. (According to these guys, at least, link and the people who published the book of these things I was trying to read a few years back.)


Is that even possible?



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20 Oct 2011, 8:09 pm

Verdandi wrote:
dancing_penguin wrote:
Apparently you're supposed to look into the distance with your field of perception, but focus on your near vision range. (According to these guys, at least, link and the people who published the book of these things I was trying to read a few years back.)


Is that even possible?


Hmm, actually, I think they say to do the opposite: focus away, and perceive your near range. But still that didn't work for me either with those pictures.


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20 Oct 2011, 8:14 pm

dancing_penguin wrote:
Hmm, actually, I think they say to do the opposite: focus away, and perceive your near range. But still that didn't work for me either with those pictures.


I just cross my eyes and get a headache.