Comments on: McGurk

McGurk

knutmo — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:00:22 -0800

The McGurk Effect

By: GeekAnimator

GeekAnimator — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:17:13 -0800

You've completely freaked me out for the rest of the day. thanks!

By: cortex

cortex — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:20:13 -0800

Awesome.

By: jpburns

jpburns — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:31:16 -0800

I don't get it. He continues to say "Ba Ba, ba ba, ba ba." THERE ARE 4 LIGHTS!!!!

By: Hlewagast

Hlewagast — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:32:09 -0800

I'm disappointed, I was hoping this was going to be about Coach McGurk from Home Movies.

By: alms

alms — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:34:43 -0800

That's pretty amazing. Thanks.

By: xmutex

xmutex — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:45:59 -0800

What about that classic phenomenon whereby someone reads instructions for an exercise and upon completion of said exercise swears they heard it correctly as mentioned in the original instructions?

By: mimi

mimi — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:46:29 -0800

Freeeaky. I heard BA while listening, GA while watching.

By: shoepal

shoepal — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:55:34 -0800

[ wtf! ] I am such a sucker for this stuff.

By: banished

banished — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:56:23 -0800

I heard Tha Tha.... ohh well

By: Mars Saxman

Mars Saxman — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:06:32 -0800

Me too, mimi; I couldn't make myself hear "da da", but definitely perceived a different sound when I had my eyes shut.

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:12:25 -0800

speed it up and you get the intro to pork chop sandwiches. nice link, though.

By: keef

keef — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:13:15 -0800

This is the coolest and strangest thing I have seen (and heard, and fused) in a long time.

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:13:57 -0800

Mars, it's actually 'ba ba', so it's good you couldn't force it into 'da da'

By: pejamo

pejamo — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:15:40 -0800

I'm confused, how can you say "ba ba" without using your lips? Secondarily, how many typos can they fit into one small paragraph of text and still expect me to take them seriously?

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:21:35 -0800

I think the audio was dubbed in afterwards, pejamo.

By: Witty

Witty — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:22:26 -0800

What about that classic phenomenon whereby someone reads instructions for an exercise and upon completion of said exercise swears they heard it correctly as mentioned in the original instructions? Not followin'... but I'm interested.

By: tristeza

tristeza — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:23:16 -0800

All I heard was Tom Brokaw saying "LA LA LA LA LA LA" or: "GA GA GA GA GA GA"

By: Witty

Witty — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:30:17 -0800

I think the audio was dubbed in afterwards, pejamo. Right... hence the effect.

By: cortex

cortex — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:37:19 -0800

All we hear is Radio Ga Ga

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:39:38 -0800

I once saw this effect demonstrated in front of an audience of a few hundred people, as part of a seminar on developmental linguistics. The speaker's point was that language has many visual cues associated with it, so in teaching language to infants, it's important to have a native speaker who can accurately reproduce those cues, along with the proper phonetics. Infants can't learn language properly from an audio recording. Anyway, when she gave this demonstration (video of the speaker, projected hugely at the front of the room), you could hear collective gasps and giggles coming from the audience as people opened and closed their eyes. Single most impressive demonstration I've ever seen as part of a scientific talk, I think.

By: pejamo

pejamo — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:48:03 -0800

busithoth - Thank you! Now I am sufficiently weirded out.

By: jeffmshaw

jeffmshaw — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 13:08:55 -0800

I thought this was going to be about a 10-year-old detective.

By: Hildago

Hildago — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 13:25:31 -0800

Anybody else hear a command to murder?

By: mmcg

mmcg — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 14:44:41 -0800

This thread has a disturbingly high concentration of my surname. I am officially freaked out.

By: roboto

roboto — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 15:03:21 -0800

Weird science. In other McG news, Dirt McGirk

By: chrispy

chrispy — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 15:32:01 -0800

Amazing! Slightly off-topic, but inattentional blindness is another cool example of how our brains warp and filter reality (no video unfortunately).

By: pissfactory

pissfactory — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 15:48:32 -0800

I most definately also heard a command to murder.

By: alms

alms — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 16:53:06 -0800

Very interesting. I heard "ba ba" and "da da" like most people. My wife on the other hand heard "ba ba" with her eyes closed and "ga ga" with her eyes open. She has limited hearing in one of her ears. So it makes sense that she'd rely more on the visual input.

By: Keyser Soze

Keyser Soze — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 17:06:00 -0800

Interesting........................................... hypothesis.

By: Gyan

Gyan — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 18:17:17 -0800

Keyser Soze, what's the hypothesis here?

By: quarantine

quarantine — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 19:11:33 -0800

I have perfect hearing, but the recording sounded exactly the same to me with my eyes open or closed: "ba ba".

By: precocious

precocious — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 19:59:08 -0800

I covered the guy's mouth up and kept watching his eyes, and heard ba ba. I moved my finger away and it immediately sounded like da da (the moment I saw his lips.) I hear da da even if the guy is on my peripheral, and have to close my eyes or turn my head completely to hear the ba-s. How freeeeeeeeeeeeaky.

By: rafter

rafter — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 21:13:55 -0800

Banished, I am so clearly hearing a 'tha tha,' as well. This is really incredible. It's one thing to be fooled the first time, but what amazes me is even after closing my eyes and knowing that it is really 'ba ba' with my eyes open again I still hear it wrong. I mean, I'm hearing it. Like the tha/da sound is coming into my ears. The effect even works if I glance away from the screen during the video. [this is great]

By: ursus_comiter

ursus_comiter — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 21:20:31 -0800

Ba ba all the way for me, eyes open or closed.

By: Turd Furguson

Turd Furguson — Sat, 17 Apr 2004 07:40:51 -0800

chrispy -- there are videos of the inattentional blindness studies here.

By: effugas

effugas — Sat, 17 Apr 2004 09:41:42 -0800

Incidentally, the difference between ba ba and ga ga is what's stopping the airflow from the lungs -- in ba ba, it's the lips, in ga ga, it's the center of the tongue. Obvious to some, but I had _no_ idea of tongue shaping before linguistics class. Didn't even realize the basic stuff, like the identical nature of f/v, s/z, t/d, etc... they're spoken the same, it's just if our throat buzzes or not. Feel your mouth move. The McGurk effect probably has alot to do with the fusion of sensory signals at the LGN -- the laternal genticular nuclei. Basically, our optical and auditory nerves merge at this small nut shaped region, and are joined by nerves from all over the rest of the brain. IOW, there are feedback loops that modify our sensory signals _before they're even analyzed_. Thus the very strongly perceived auditory shift based on lip motion -- I mean, it's not just that we understand differently, it really feels like the voice says something different when we close our eyes.

By: Gyan

Gyan — Sat, 17 Apr 2004 11:11:19 -0800

Within the fractal dissonance of fractured emergence, the grammar of cellular automata subsumes itself.

By: MrMoonPie

MrMoonPie — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 10:10:28 -0800

It sounded like a deaf person saying da da, to me. Lots of Gallaudet students around my neighborhood, so maybe I'm just used to hearing that. But it makes sense, in that they are producing sounds they haven't heard.