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Psychological Phenomena

Ventriloquism Effect

Perception and Psychophysics Effects

The ventriloquism effect is a perceptual phenomenon, an instance of the broader visual capture effect, in which vision overrides hearing in locating the source of a sound. When a ventriloquist performs, audiences perceive the puppet's moving mouth as the true source of the voice rather than the ventriloquist's own mouth, because visual information about where the movement is happening dominates the auditory cues about where the sound is actually coming from, producing a single coherent, if inaccurate, perceptual experience.

Facts
Core Claim
Speech sounds are perceived as coming from a direction other than their true direction, due to the influence of visual stimuli from an apparent speaker. 1
Classification
Type of Phenomenon
Perceptual Phenomenon 1
Sources
1. Ventriloquism effect, Wikipedia
  • Lead section
    the perception of speech sounds as coming from a direction other than their true direction, due to the influence of visual stimuli from an apparent speaker.
  • lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
    The ventriloquism effect is a perceptual phenomenon, an instance of the broader visual capture effect, in which vision overrides hearing in locating the source of a sound.
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