PERCEIVING TALKING FACES

No one doubts the importance of the face in social interactions, but people seldom think of it as playing much of a role in verbal communication. A number of observations suggest otherwise, though: Many people dislike talking over the telephone and are irritated by poorly dubbed foreign films. Some people even comment that they hear the television better with their glasses on. Children born blind learn some speech distinctions more slowly than their sighted cohorts. It has been well known for some time that the deaf and hearing impaired can make valuable use of lipreading, which is better termed speechreading, but more recently investigators have shown that even people with normal hearing are greatly influenced by the visible speech in face-to-face communication. Our research is aimed at understanding how people perceive speech by both ear and eye.