Gaze behavior in audiovisual speech perception: the influence of ocular fixations on the McGurk effect.

Full Abstract

We conducted three experiments in order to examine the influence of gaze behavior and fixation on audiovisual speech perception in a task that required subjects to report the speech sound they perceived during the presentation of congruent and incongruent (McGurk) audiovisual stimuli. Experiment 1 showed that the subjects' natural gaze behavior rarely involved gaze fixations beyond the oral and ocular regions of the talker's face and that these gaze fixations did not predict the likelihood of perceiving the McGurk effect. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that manipulation of the subjects' gaze fixations within the talker's face did not influence audiovisual speech perception substantially and that it was not until the gaze was displaced beyond 10 degrees - 20 degrees from the talker's mouth that the McGurk effect was significantly lessened. Nevertheless, the effect persisted under such eccentric viewing conditions and became negligible only when the subject's gaze was directed 60 degrees eccentrically. These findings demonstrate that the analysis of high spatial frequency information afforded by direct oral foveation is not necessary for the successful processing of visual speech information.

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Author information

Author/s: Paré, Martin (M); Richler, Rebecca C (RC); ten Hove, Martin (M); Munhall, K G (KG);

Affiliation: Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. pare@biomed.queensu.ca

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Journal: Perception & psychophysics (Percept Psychophys), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-May; vol 65 (issue 4) : pp 553-67

Dates: Created 2003/06/18; Completed 2003/07/28; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12812278, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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