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Mind the gap
Shop talk What he learned in the newsroom Mr. Boffo lays an eggcorn Curse of the mummy's tummy More in Word Watch  |
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| Generation Thursday, February 22, 2007Stop, look, and listenNow for something completely different. If you like little psych experiments, you'd be wise to listen good. Literally. Someone in Norway -- perhaps a science researcher but it's hard to tell in Norwegian -- has posted a video online that illustrates the so-called McGurk Effect (funny name). The effect is in essence an interaction between vision and hearing that takes place beneath the perceiver's consciousness. We are all, it seems, reading lips when someone talks to us. Watch the man in the video (very Norwegian looking, by the way) make the same sound repeatedly and try to identify the sound; is it "da" or "ba" or "ga"? Midway through, close your eyes or look away. The sound is suddenly different, and crystal clear. Another video of the same phenomenon, even more dramatic, is here. Posted by Evan Hughes at 05:36 PM
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