Mystifying the Senses: Bimodal Speech Perception
My grandmother, like many elderly people, suffers from hearing loss. Recently however, she has begun to lose her sight as well. Curiously enough, though her level of auditory impairment remains the same since macular degeneration has claimed her ability to see, her hearing seems to have deteriorated further. Could this be simply the result of alienation because of the loss of a further sense? This situation led me to wonder about my own hearing ability. I have often experienced hearing difficulty in settings where I cannot see the person who is talking to me-in a movie theater, or over the telephone. The questions raised here call into question the conventional notion of sensory processing. Distinctive inputs are received by their respective processing organ and the end result is relayed to the brain. How then can we explain a seeming reliance of two different sensory percepts on each other? Is there more to hearing than our ears?
Historically, scientific evidence for the existence of sensory integration has long existed, but the first formal theory developed to this effect was stumbled upon by Harry McGurk and John MacDonald of the University of Surrey (1). The scientists were involved in a study of how infants perceive speech by playing a video of a mother talking in one place and playing the sound of her voice in another place. They randomly began to play with the consequences of dubbing an particular audio sound onto the video of the mother saying a different sound (2). They found that when the auditory syllable, "ba-ba" was imposed on the visual syllable "ga-ga", "da-da" was heard. The same occurred when the audio and visual syllables were reversed. Also, "pa-pa" dubbed on "ka-ka" was heard as "ta-ta". When one of the sensory inputs was eliminated by closing the eyes, or plugging the ears, the correct syllable was identified (2). McGurk and McDonald found "Contemporary, auditory-based theories of speech perception...inadequate to accommodate these new observations" and concluded that there must be some allowance made for the influence of the visual on hearing (2). The conventional theory of the senses is challenged.
So, speech perception is bimodal. Of course, as science repeatedly shows, nothing is simple as that. The question remains, how does this integration occur? When does it occur? What neurological systems are involved? It has become generally accepted that audio and visual inputs are received by independent organs (the ears and eyes) and that integration occurs sometime after these two systems have "processed" the input.
At a young age, I witnessed my younger brother lodge an eraser in his ear and later have it removed by a doctor. A year later he had tubes inserted and a year or so after that, I saw those tubes fall out of his head. Besides thinking that my younger brother was really a robot with metal parts falling out of his brain, it was where my fascination of the human ear began. Since then I’ve helped my grandfather and father with their hearing aids, especially replacing the small batteries which was difficult for their large farmers’ hands. I’ve also observed my older sister, an Audiologist in California, for two weeks as she worked with patients, letting me do hearing aid cleanings, help with sales, file patient records, observe ear molds being
Another noteworthy urban sociologist that’s invested significant research and time into gentrification is Saskia Sassen, among other topical analysis including globalization. “Gentrification was initially understood as the rehabilitation of decaying and low-income housing by middle-class outsiders in central cities. In the late 1970s a broader conceptualization of the process began to emerge, and by the early 1980s new scholarship had developed a far broader meaning of gentrification, linking it with processes of spatial, economic and social restructuring.” (Sassen 1991: 255). This account is an extract from an influential book that extended beyond the field of gentrification and summarizes its basis proficiently. In more recent and localized media, the release the documentary-film ‘In Jackson Heights’ portrayed the devastation that gentrification is causing as it plagues through Jackson Heights, Queens. One of the local businessmen interviewed is shop owner Don Tobon, stating "We live in a
First, one must understand the distinction between hearing and listening. Hearing is simply the reception of sound waves by the ears. This may happen unconsciously, as is usually the case with soft background noise such as the whoosh of air through heating ducts or the distant murmur of an electric clothes dryer. Sometimes hearing is done semi-consciously; for instance, the roar of a piece of construction equipment might momentarily draw one's attention. Conscious hearing, or listening, involves a nearly full degree of mental concentration. A familiar i...
The next speaker, Dr. Gottlieb investigated the hearing aspect of our senses. He investigated the interaction between our heari...
Rago, C. (1994, Nov 04). PETER COOK'S `YOUR EYES MY HANDS' PUTS DEAFNESS IN SPOTLIGHT. Chicago Tribune (Pre-1997 Fulltext). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/283834665?accountid=26459
Seikel, J. A., King, D. W., & Drumright, D. G. (2010). 12. Anatomy & physiology for speech,
Synesthesia is defined as the sensation produced at a point other than or remote from the point of stimulation, as of a color from hearing a certain sound.[1] (From the Greek, syn=together+aesthesis=to perceive).
Though some of the hearing community might take on an unknowingly negative approach on deafness due to a lack of knowledge, for those in the deaf community, their hearing loss is not a burden or a disability, but instead an important component of their identity and culture (Sanger-Katz). Many see being deaf as a positive attribute (Sanger-Katz). The motto belonging to the deaf community is “the deaf can do anything but hear” (“Deaf, not I...
Auditory localization is the ability to recognize the location from which a sound is emanating (Goldstine, 2002). There are many practical reasons for studying auditory localization. For example, previous research states that visual cues are necessary in locating a particular sound (Culling, 2000). However, blind people do not have the luxury of sight to help them locate a sound. Therefore, the ability to locate sound based only on auditory ability is important. It is also important to study different auditory processes. For example, when studying a way for a blind person to maneuver through an environment, it is helpful to know that people can most accurately locate sounds that happen directly in front of them; sounds that are far off, to the side, or behind the head are the least likely to be properly located (Goldstein, 2002).
In California wildfires have been raging for a long time. The vast Thomas fire has been spreading and is now as big as New York City. But there is good news, firefighters have contained 25% of the Thomas fire. Also the Santa Ana winds have decreased to 15-25 miles per hour so the fires will not spread as fast. There are 6 fires including the Thomas fire together they are larger than the nation of Singapore or larger than New York City and Boston combined. They have destroyed more than 1000 buildings combined. One of the fires called the Skirball fire has consumed 400 acres and destroyed 6 houses. It has also damaged 12 houses. But luckily it is 85% contained. There are also new fires that are becoming deadly called the Lilac and Liberty fires.
Everyone has experienced hearing a language they do not understand. In that context, the words seem to consist of a meaningless series of sounds; this is often ascribed to the listener not knowing the definitions of the vocabulary used. However, in addition to not being familiar with the words said, a person who does not understand the language will hear and process the sounds differently than a native speaker. This fact is partially explained by categorial perception, a perceptual-learning phenomenon in which the categories of different stimuli possessed by an individual affect his or her perception.
Neuronal plasticity found in infants, and the learning process has been of keen interest to neurobiologists for some time. How does the brain develop and attain the skills we need as one grows is fascinating. It is commonly understood that a crying infant can only be consoled by his/her mother, and is able to recognize her voice over the voice of a stranger. A number of studies have also been done on the distinct reaction of infants to sounds of their own language versus a foreign language, familiar melodies or fragments of stories they may have heard repeatedly during the fetus stage (Partanen et. al, 2013). However, these studies relied heavily on the infant’s reactions, which bared little credibility (Skwarecki, 2013). One research team developed a technique to show that infants actually develop memory of the sounds they hear while in the womb, and are able to recognize the similar sounds at the time of birth. The team was able to trace changes in brain activity in new born infants, and thus provided quantitative evidence that memory forms before birth (Partanen et. al, 2013). This paper begins by examining the literature that identifies associations between MMR used as a tool to measure auditory input and Exposure to Psuedoword and how its varations create memory traces.
A series of wildfires detrimentally affected California this summer of 2016 having destroyed an abundance of people’s homes and leaving them subjected to evacuation orders, but particularly the Chimney fire which has been burning since August 13, and is currently only 35% contained since reported on August 23.
Soderstrom (2007) found that ID speech is present in most spoken languages. She also found that ID speech is characterized different properties that include prosodic, phonological, and syntactic properties. Prosodic properties of ID speech include higher pitch of the voice, varying the pitch of one’s voice, elongating vowels, and lengthening the pauses between words in a sentence. Many researchers suggest that these prosodic properties grab the infants’ attention and hold their attention. Phonological properties of ID speech include differences in voice onset time distinction and exaggerating certain words in a sentence. Soderstrom found varying opinions on whether or not the phonological properties were actually helpful in language acquisition. Syntactic properties of ID speech include shorte...
Hearing is known to be an automatic function of the body. According to the dictionary, hearing is, “the faculty or sense by which sound is perceived; the act of perceiving sound,” (“hearing…”). Hearing is a physical and involuntary act; therefore, unless one is born with a specific form of deafness, everyone has the natural ability to hear sounds. Sounds constantly surround us in our everyday environments, and because we are so accustomed to hearing certain sounds we sometimes don’t acknowledge them at all (or “listen” to them). The dictionary definition of listening is, “to give attention with the ear; attend closely for the purpose of hearing,” (“listening…”). This differs from hearing in that this is a voluntary action, and we have control over what we choose to listen to. As stated by William Seiler and Melissa Beall, “You don’t have to work at hearing; it just happens… Listening, on the other hand, is active and requires energy and desire,” (145).