Chefs know that when their dishes don’t look appealing, diners think the food tastes bad. And since the mid-1970s, scientists have produced evidence that the senses work together—for example, people hear with both their eyes and ears. Bryan Gick and Donald Derrick of the University of British Columbia published a paper in Nature expanding the idea of complementary sensory cues. They found that people hear with their skin.
Participants listened to spoken syllables such as “pa” and “ta” and “da” and “ba.” When humans say pa and ta, they produce a small burst of air, but do not exhale a puff of air when saying da and ba. While connected to a machine that blew tiny gusts of air onto the skin of their hands and neck, subjects heard the various sounds. When people heard da and ba accompanied by a burst of air, they believed they heard ta and pa. The puff of air—either from the machine or a human—is so slight that detection of it is subconscious. This research indicates that complementary sensing is an innate human trait.
“What’s so persuasive about this particular effect,” Gick told The New York Times, “is that people are picking up on this information that they don’t know they are using.”
Comments (5)
Comment
- subscribe /
- give a gift /
- terms of service /
- about /
- contact us /
- write for us /
- ad info /
- subscriber services /
- press /
- privacy policy /
- rss /
© 2012 Mental Floss Inc. All Rights Reserved. Mental Floss is a registered trademark owned by Felix Dennis. mentalfloss.com is a trademark owned by Felix Dennis.
Disclaimer: All submissions made to mental_floss become the property of Mental Floss Inc and may be used without further permission by the submitter and without compensation to the submitter. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not submit anything to mental_floss.
You know, I’ve been saying this for years. Ever since the amp for my bass blew out and I had to play for 3 weeks while I got it repaired, actually. I could hear what notes I was playing through my fingertips. I can’t wait to show this study to my brother, who never believed me.
posted by Nosey on 12-2-2009 at 2:27 pm
I’ve known for years that I hear with both my ears and eyes. If my glasses are off, I can’t hear as well (and it’s not always because of lip-reading).
posted by clarity on 12-2-2009 at 8:49 pm
I used to play the oboe in bands and orchestras all the time. Often we’d be playing so loud I couldn’t hear if I was in tune, but I could definitely feel it. Matching the vibrations was often the best way to match pitch.
posted by Carolyn on 12-3-2009 at 1:13 am
Was this study conducted only on those that speak English? English distinguishes between t and d, p and b, k and g, by both aspiration and voicing. Other languages do not make this distinction and have either both sets unvoiced or unaspirated. This should contribute noticeably to the understanding of puffs of air. Perhaps the mechanical puffs of air are as important as the sounds that are associated with them in the understanding of language, not of sound.
posted by Theophilus Davenport on 12-3-2009 at 9:57 am
I wonder if that is why some music can make the hair on the back of my neck stand up?
posted by peg on 12-6-2009 at 6:17 pm