The McGurk effect is mind-blowing. It involves showing a person’s lips making the shape of one sound—like “bah”—while the audio is actually the person saying “fah.” What’s interesting is that your brain changes what you “hear” based on what you see. It’s “bah” all the way through, but when we see “bah” our minds transform “bah” into “fah.”
The effect is named for researcher Harry McGurk, who published a 1976 paper with John MacDonald entitled “Hearing lips and seeing voices.” McGurk and MacDonald described how speech perception isn’t just about sound—it’s also affected by vision, and the integration of the two.
More of the MentalFloss post from Chris Higgins
