Can the eyes fool the ears to assist selective listening?

Mr Bradley Jack, Discipline of Psychology, Southern Cross University

2:30pm
Friday, 24 June 2011

Lecture Hall D350 (Coffs Harbour campus)
Video-linked to Lecture Hall P158 (Lismore campus) and to A223 (Tweed Heads Gold Coast Riverside campus)

Driver (1996) showed that selective listening can be enhanced by the ventriloquist illusion when two different speech sounds are present. Participants in his study listened to target and distractor words from the same loudspeaker while watching a video of a person mouthing the target words. Driver found that participants could repeat the target words better when the video was shifted to either the left or right of the loudspeaker than when the video and loudspeaker were in the same place.

My colleagues and I conducted six experiments to assess this claim and obtained mixed results. In today's colloquium, I will discuss our findings and their implications.

Bradley Jack completed his Bachelor of Psychology at Southern Cross University, Coffs Harbour in 2010.

He graduated with First Class Honours and won an Australian Postgraduate Award. He is also a recipient of the Journal Manuscript Award for Honours Students. He is currently working on his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Robert O'Shea and Dr Steve Provost.

Colloquium Flyer - Mr Bradley Jack
Video-recording of colloquium.
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