Seeing is believing
February 24, 2020 2:39 AM Subscribe
I live in Japan and speak so-so Japanese, and while this article mentions Japanese in the context of social norms and cues, I'd say Japanese is a good candidate because of the comparatively small number of phonemes the language has. Something like less than half of the sounds you would hear in English. For example English has the L and R sound, the former of which Japanese lacks. And Japanese only has 5 vowel sounds! I've taught English pronunciation to Japanese students, and tell them to make the L sound, the lips and tongue and mouth all have to be in this position, and to make a V sound you have to put your top teeth on your tongue in this position. To a large extent, Japanese speakers move their mouths (and lips and tongue) very little, at least compared with English.
posted by zardoz at 4:06 AM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by zardoz at 4:06 AM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
I am a linguist. I don't know any linguists who spend any time thinking about lipreading, although I suppose some must exist, somewhere.
He eventually gets on the path of integration of visual information in interpretation which in my field (phonetics/phonology/prosody) isn't common, but also isn't fringe. Most undergrads learn about the McGurk effect.
I think the article is a pretty good entry in "reporter asks linguists a question that they respond to with 'well, I need to explain to you all the wrong assumptions behind that question first'" (see also "What's the oldest language? " "Is texting ruining speech?") with the reporter actually mostly listening to them about why the question is nonsense, and reporting back some of the relevant literature, such that it exists.
He does veer back into eyebrow raising territory at the end when he attempts to answer the question, but the middle is solid, and highlights some interesting research contradicting the general statement that people can't lipread, or that some phonemes can't be lipread (e.g., tones or gutterals).
The reporter's track record on linguistics reporting is fairly good if you look through his past work on Atlas Obscura (full disclosure, he did interview me for one of them).
posted by damayanti at 4:56 AM on February 24, 2020 [17 favorites]
He eventually gets on the path of integration of visual information in interpretation which in my field (phonetics/phonology/prosody) isn't common, but also isn't fringe. Most undergrads learn about the McGurk effect.
I think the article is a pretty good entry in "reporter asks linguists a question that they respond to with 'well, I need to explain to you all the wrong assumptions behind that question first'" (see also "What's the oldest language? " "Is texting ruining speech?") with the reporter actually mostly listening to them about why the question is nonsense, and reporting back some of the relevant literature, such that it exists.
He does veer back into eyebrow raising territory at the end when he attempts to answer the question, but the middle is solid, and highlights some interesting research contradicting the general statement that people can't lipread, or that some phonemes can't be lipread (e.g., tones or gutterals).
The reporter's track record on linguistics reporting is fairly good if you look through his past work on Atlas Obscura (full disclosure, he did interview me for one of them).
posted by damayanti at 4:56 AM on February 24, 2020 [17 favorites]
I'm about 30% deaf overall, and mostly in one ear. I haven't had it tested in a long time, and I suspect it's worse now any age 49. I rely heavily on lip reading, as if I can see the person, I have a much, much easier time understanding them.
Also: I have pretty thick skin. But I get so irritated sometimes. I will tell people in new work (or social) situations that I am partially deaf. Because otherwise people sometimes think I'm ignoring them, or that I'm just lost in my own world (not working in a way, or "He's such a Space Cadet!").
SO OFTEN, people will straight up makes jokes about this to my face! It's so fucking weird. If I told someone I was partially blind, I do not think they'd make jokes. But for some reason, hearing loss is treated with this weird kind of flippant attitude. Like loss of hearing is funny to people? "We're all getting old!" kind of jokes, or a "Ha ha, you gotta yell at me sometimes, too!" kinda crap. As if my hearing loss is just funny on its face.
I've had this all my life. I started straight-up telling people this in advance when I got older, around 40. Figured it's better if people know up front. Well I'm nearly 50 now, and I'm astonished how often people make fun of me about this. Again, I have pretty thick skin. But FFS, I'm not TELLING YOU this for comedic reasons. Even being forward and up-front to other adults in a work environment brings on the Comedy Gold from many people.
Or, I'll have to remind someone that I'm partially deaf. Then they'll joke about it AGAIN, like yell it really loud and exaggerated, right at me. Or make some Grandpa comment, or "yeah, I listened to too much loud music when I was a kid, too!" comment. HAHAHAHAHA.
Mostly when I tell people: They think I'M JOKING by telling them I am part deaf. Like that's the first thing that occurs to people. I'm just making a joke about being deaf? WTF?
I don't know why this is the case. But it's true and it's annoying as fuck.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:15 AM on February 24, 2020 [17 favorites]
Also: I have pretty thick skin. But I get so irritated sometimes. I will tell people in new work (or social) situations that I am partially deaf. Because otherwise people sometimes think I'm ignoring them, or that I'm just lost in my own world (not working in a way, or "He's such a Space Cadet!").
SO OFTEN, people will straight up makes jokes about this to my face! It's so fucking weird. If I told someone I was partially blind, I do not think they'd make jokes. But for some reason, hearing loss is treated with this weird kind of flippant attitude. Like loss of hearing is funny to people? "We're all getting old!" kind of jokes, or a "Ha ha, you gotta yell at me sometimes, too!" kinda crap. As if my hearing loss is just funny on its face.
I've had this all my life. I started straight-up telling people this in advance when I got older, around 40. Figured it's better if people know up front. Well I'm nearly 50 now, and I'm astonished how often people make fun of me about this. Again, I have pretty thick skin. But FFS, I'm not TELLING YOU this for comedic reasons. Even being forward and up-front to other adults in a work environment brings on the Comedy Gold from many people.
Or, I'll have to remind someone that I'm partially deaf. Then they'll joke about it AGAIN, like yell it really loud and exaggerated, right at me. Or make some Grandpa comment, or "yeah, I listened to too much loud music when I was a kid, too!" comment. HAHAHAHAHA.
Mostly when I tell people: They think I'M JOKING by telling them I am part deaf. Like that's the first thing that occurs to people. I'm just making a joke about being deaf? WTF?
I don't know why this is the case. But it's true and it's annoying as fuck.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:15 AM on February 24, 2020 [17 favorites]
it’s weirdly difficult to find data about the effectiveness of lipreading as practiced by people who actually do it as part of their daily lives.
lipreading is, in the deaf community, sometimes referred to as an “oralist” technique. Oralism refers to the emphasis on trying to interpret speech rather than on creating an alternate form of communication, namely sign language. Most developed countries have experienced a push to move away from oralism and toward sign language; there are now dozens of different sign languages around the world. It’s almost considered offensive, to some, to emphasize lipreading rather than a form of communication that does not put deaf people at a disadvantage.
Because of that, it’s generally the poor and often the illiterate who rely on lipreading.
These items stood out to me. I know we struggle with able-ist language here, and i kinda wish we could reboot this thread and hear from anyone who might actually deal with this as a life issue. I will also admit that my first thoughts were for the lols.
posted by OHenryPacey at 8:05 AM on February 24, 2020 [6 favorites]
lipreading is, in the deaf community, sometimes referred to as an “oralist” technique. Oralism refers to the emphasis on trying to interpret speech rather than on creating an alternate form of communication, namely sign language. Most developed countries have experienced a push to move away from oralism and toward sign language; there are now dozens of different sign languages around the world. It’s almost considered offensive, to some, to emphasize lipreading rather than a form of communication that does not put deaf people at a disadvantage.
Because of that, it’s generally the poor and often the illiterate who rely on lipreading.
These items stood out to me. I know we struggle with able-ist language here, and i kinda wish we could reboot this thread and hear from anyone who might actually deal with this as a life issue. I will also admit that my first thoughts were for the lols.
posted by OHenryPacey at 8:05 AM on February 24, 2020 [6 favorites]
SoberHighland, I have the same issue and people don't joke about it to me at work, but notably I work in a hospital one floor down from the hearing and speech sciences department. Outside of work, I only bring it up when I'm having trouble hearing (second time I say "pardon?" I'll generally add "sorry, I'm a bit hard-of-hearing") and occasionally somebody makes a crack like you mention. I always find those interactions weird. I can't imagine what it must be like for people with serious hearing loss.
posted by joannemerriam at 8:38 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by joannemerriam at 8:38 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
> If I told someone I was partially blind, I do not think they'd make jokes.
Nah. They do.
posted by Subaru drwxrwxrwx at 9:07 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
Nah. They do.
posted by Subaru drwxrwxrwx at 9:07 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Bunch of lulzy comments removed. Maybe keep the one-off lol jokes to a minimum and engage with the content?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:23 AM on February 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:23 AM on February 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
Don't get me started on the way people joke about hearing loss. I think it's the disability I think people feel the most free to openly make fun of. I can't tell you how many times a week I tell someone what I do and they say, "What?" Hilarious, just hilarious.
In any case, I think this guy is completely wrong about the amount of research there is on this, and to me it is clear he wrote this article without actually doing any type of rigorous journal searches.
There's a tremendous amount of research in audiology and hearing science on lipreading and auditory/visual integration. There are lots of test batteries that compare speech perception with and without visual cues. A lot of this research is on people who rely lip-reading in their daily lives (everyone relies on lip-reading, but people with hearing loss rely on it more).
Think about hearing aids, for example. We want to know how much they help people with and without visual cues. If you can see a person's face, for example, the hearing aid is going to help you a lot less. Further, we have to figure out how much lag we can possibly have with a hearing aid. The brain has a limit to how much jitter between the auditory signal and the lip movement can exist before we don't integrate them as being connected anymore, and it is intolerable for people if that happens. So we have to make hearing aids fast enough that the brain still connects the audio signal with the lip cue. Hell, I have a forthcoming study about how much lip-reading cues change as a function of GPS locations visited by people with hearing loss. So no, I don't agree that there isn't much research on this. I think this author is lazy.
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:28 AM on February 24, 2020 [7 favorites]
In any case, I think this guy is completely wrong about the amount of research there is on this, and to me it is clear he wrote this article without actually doing any type of rigorous journal searches.
There's a tremendous amount of research in audiology and hearing science on lipreading and auditory/visual integration. There are lots of test batteries that compare speech perception with and without visual cues. A lot of this research is on people who rely lip-reading in their daily lives (everyone relies on lip-reading, but people with hearing loss rely on it more).
Think about hearing aids, for example. We want to know how much they help people with and without visual cues. If you can see a person's face, for example, the hearing aid is going to help you a lot less. Further, we have to figure out how much lag we can possibly have with a hearing aid. The brain has a limit to how much jitter between the auditory signal and the lip movement can exist before we don't integrate them as being connected anymore, and it is intolerable for people if that happens. So we have to make hearing aids fast enough that the brain still connects the audio signal with the lip cue. Hell, I have a forthcoming study about how much lip-reading cues change as a function of GPS locations visited by people with hearing loss. So no, I don't agree that there isn't much research on this. I think this author is lazy.
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:28 AM on February 24, 2020 [7 favorites]
I sometimes wonder if a more serious hearing loss would make it easier for people to understand. I don't want a more serious impairment, but I've thought about this.
My supervisor has sight issues, something that makes her wear semi-blocked glasses (like half of her lenses are opaque or frosted white), so it's telegraphed to people that an issue is there. She's discussed this with me, and it also has to do with being averse to bright lighting. So she has this partial disability.
Which makes it even weirder that she has made wisecracks to me about my hearing! She doesn't do it often, and I've discussed this with her, so I'm not massively whining about her in particular. But even people with disabilities can act like this about other people's hearing.
I think sometimes the jokes come from discomfort discussing disabilities in general. But my hearing loss is hard to tell unless you interact with me for a while, or unless I tell you. So it's not readily apparent. I've considered wearing a pin or something that displays that I have hearing issues, but I doubt that would make any difference.
Sorry for the derail. But yes, I have found that I do a LOT of unconscious (and untrained) lip reading all the time. Even in movies, it's harder for me to understand dialog if it's a voiceover, or the character speaks off camera.
posted by SoberHighland at 9:31 AM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
My supervisor has sight issues, something that makes her wear semi-blocked glasses (like half of her lenses are opaque or frosted white), so it's telegraphed to people that an issue is there. She's discussed this with me, and it also has to do with being averse to bright lighting. So she has this partial disability.
Which makes it even weirder that she has made wisecracks to me about my hearing! She doesn't do it often, and I've discussed this with her, so I'm not massively whining about her in particular. But even people with disabilities can act like this about other people's hearing.
I think sometimes the jokes come from discomfort discussing disabilities in general. But my hearing loss is hard to tell unless you interact with me for a while, or unless I tell you. So it's not readily apparent. I've considered wearing a pin or something that displays that I have hearing issues, but I doubt that would make any difference.
Sorry for the derail. But yes, I have found that I do a LOT of unconscious (and untrained) lip reading all the time. Even in movies, it's harder for me to understand dialog if it's a voiceover, or the character speaks off camera.
posted by SoberHighland at 9:31 AM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
Since the article mentions it: Pirahã, previously, previouslier.
(Oof, I missed one.)
posted by box at 9:32 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
(Oof, I missed one.)
posted by box at 9:32 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
Hello damayanti, nice to meet you. Re the linguistics thing again: I guess I have narrower definition of lip-reading than the author. I am a phonologist, so naturally I recognize that people relie on cues based on things other than the pure acoustic signal. What I mean is, lip-reading as a speech act, or strictly using the movement of the lips to understand another speaker's utterance. I am just very prickly about pop-science articles mentioning linguistics. See the mention of Pirahã, above. It's unclear what in Pirahã, with its several labial phones, would make it difficult to be lip read, but it gets brought out here.
posted by os tuberoes at 11:09 AM on February 24, 2020
posted by os tuberoes at 11:09 AM on February 24, 2020
I sometimes wonder if a more serious hearing loss would make it easier for people to understand.
I often think the same thing for my son. My son has a hearing impairment and we, despite having audiologists' reports and many other supporting medical documents, regularly have to have conversations with his teachers about his impairment. Some teachers get it and others just don't. I had one teacher send a note home asking us to punish our child for ignoring her. We asked my son about it and he said he was unaware that she had any issues with him. We contacted the teacher and we asked her if the room was noisy and/or he had his back to her. She said yes to both so we had to have another frustrating conversation....
I first realised that my son relied heavily on lip reading in noisy environments when I was waiting for him in a dentist's office. The dentist came around and asked me if he lip read. This was before the audiology tests and so I hadn't thought of it before (I think he was 6 maybe). But when I came around, it started to make sense - she was wearing a mask making it impossible to lip read and the noise of the dental equipment made it impossible to hear.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:43 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
I often think the same thing for my son. My son has a hearing impairment and we, despite having audiologists' reports and many other supporting medical documents, regularly have to have conversations with his teachers about his impairment. Some teachers get it and others just don't. I had one teacher send a note home asking us to punish our child for ignoring her. We asked my son about it and he said he was unaware that she had any issues with him. We contacted the teacher and we asked her if the room was noisy and/or he had his back to her. She said yes to both so we had to have another frustrating conversation....
I first realised that my son relied heavily on lip reading in noisy environments when I was waiting for him in a dentist's office. The dentist came around and asked me if he lip read. This was before the audiology tests and so I hadn't thought of it before (I think he was 6 maybe). But when I came around, it started to make sense - she was wearing a mask making it impossible to lip read and the noise of the dental equipment made it impossible to hear.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:43 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
I am partially deaf since birth, and I never realised how much I rely on being able to lip-read English until I studied abroad where everyone spoke French. It's absolutely essential, especially in noisey social environments. The class aspect of rejecting oralism sounds very interesting, especially as it related to people with less profound hearing losses.
This has been my hearing my whole life, and I'm very upfront with telling people, especially if they're speaking on my deaf side. I don't encounter too many jokes, possibly because my age? It's more likely that I simply don't notice them. In my experience everyone who spends a reasonable amount of time with me will have the experience of asking one question and have me mishear the question and then reply to a totally different one.
My partners find it disconcerting to walk together without me, because they're in a constant subconscious routine of trying to move away from 'my' deaf side.
It's one of the disabilities that's almost guaranteed to affect you as you age. I wonder if that factors into people's treatment of it. My granny made the most of being more and more deaf as she aged: She would only turn on her hearing aids if she thought you had something interesting to say.
posted by Braeburn at 10:52 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
This has been my hearing my whole life, and I'm very upfront with telling people, especially if they're speaking on my deaf side. I don't encounter too many jokes, possibly because my age? It's more likely that I simply don't notice them. In my experience everyone who spends a reasonable amount of time with me will have the experience of asking one question and have me mishear the question and then reply to a totally different one.
My partners find it disconcerting to walk together without me, because they're in a constant subconscious routine of trying to move away from 'my' deaf side.
It's one of the disabilities that's almost guaranteed to affect you as you age. I wonder if that factors into people's treatment of it. My granny made the most of being more and more deaf as she aged: She would only turn on her hearing aids if she thought you had something interesting to say.
posted by Braeburn at 10:52 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
Lip reader here - is the answer any language spoken by a thin lipped man with a mustache? Because that's the one that I can't understand for shit.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 9:44 AM on February 26, 2020
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 9:44 AM on February 26, 2020
My hearing is fine. I have audio processing disorder. Somewhere between my ear and my brain, the sound becomes garbled or drops out. I lip read, use closed captions, or a captions app like Google's Live Transcribe so that the visual synches in and unfucks what I'm hearing. If the person is behind me, I get distracted, or their mouth barely moves or is covered? Then it's a wash.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 9:51 AM on February 26, 2020
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 9:51 AM on February 26, 2020
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I am a linguist. I don't know any linguists who spend any time thinking about lipreading, although I suppose some must exist, somewhere.
posted by os tuberoes at 3:58 AM on February 24, 2020 [6 favorites]