The McGurk Effect In Relation to Musicians' Abilities

Authors

  • Claire Luo John L. Miller Great Neck North High School
  • Olivia Yeroushalmi John L. Miller Great Neck North High School
  • Alan Schorn John L. Miller Great Neck North High School

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v10i2.1473

Keywords:

McGurk, Audiovisual Stimuli, Superior Temporal Sulcus, Musicians, Audiovisual Cortex

Abstract

The original study of the McGurk Effect, a perceptual phenomenon caused by contradictory audiovisual stimuli fusing together to create the illusion of a third sound, was carried out by psychologists McGurk and MacDonald in 1976. The results of early experiments displayed that observers used both auditory and visual signals while being spoken to, auditory signals being the sound waves entering their ears, and visual signals being how the speaker moved his face while pronouncing a word. When conflicting signals are given, a third sound is perceived, as the brain is disoriented from the different signals. The idea that musicians have superior audiovisual cortexes have led some to speculate if musicians are as susceptible to the McGurk Effect as non-musicians. To research the susceptibility of musicians to the McGurk Effect, the experiment conducted included a total of 40 subjects, 20 musicians and 20 non-musicians. The subjects were played a control video of a speaker saying “ga” and were then presented with four audiovisually incongruent videos, all containing a speaker mouthing the word “ga” with the audio recording of the speaker saying “ba” dubbed on. Two main 2x2 Chi Square tests and fifteen secondary 2x2 Chi Squares tests were run in total. The two main tests, which compared the amount of McGurk interpretations to either audio or visual interpretations, both produced a p-value of <.0005. Upon further research, 25.7% of musicians reported a McGurk interpretation, as opposed to 52.2% of non-musicians, which implied that musicians are less susceptible to the McGurk effect.

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Author Biography

Alan Schorn, John L. Miller Great Neck North High School

Science Department Head

References or Bibliography

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Published

07-01-2021

How to Cite

Luo, C., Yeroushalmi, O. ., & Schorn, A. (2021). The McGurk Effect In Relation to Musicians’ Abilities. Journal of Student Research, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v10i2.1473

Issue

Section

HS Research Articles