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

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 s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Perception & psychophysics 2003-05, Vol.65 (4), p.553-567
Main Authors: PARE, Martin, RICHLER, Rebecca C, TEN HOVE, Martin, MUNHALL, K. G
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Auditory Perception
Biological and medical sciences
Female
Fixation, Ocular
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Language
Male
Production and perception of spoken language
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Speech Perception
Visual Perception
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0031-5117
1532-5962
DOI:10.3758/BF03194582