auditory illusions: ventriloquism

After our experiment in which we experienced hearing loss, I became increasingly interested in the ability to localize sound. We can tell where a sound is coming from incredibly fast. When we drive a car and we hear another car’s horn, we can tell where it is without even looking, allowing us to swerve to avoid a crash. When I play golf and I hear “fore!!” coming from another fairway, I can tell without seeing the golfer who yelled, where the ball is coming from and which way to run. The experiment made me even more interested in the ability to localize sound, after I walked through campus with only one earplug in. I thought that my ability to localize sounds would be completely shot with hearing limited in one of my ears. But it wasn’t. Sure it was effected by the earplug, but in general, if a fried who was across the quad called my name, I would still know where the sound was coming from.

All of this got me thinking about ventriloquism. If having an earplug in one ear was unable to have an effect on my ability to localize sounds, how are ventriloquists able to make people hear their voice coming from a puppet on their lap? I have always been interested in ventriloquism, as one of the creepiest forms of performance in the world, and this experiment made me finally hop on the internet and find out how it works. While the Wikipedia article I read goes into considerably more detail about the brain functions that make ventriloquism possible, it turns out that ventriloquism is nothing more than a visual illusion. We are so used to associating speech with a moving mouth, that when we hear the words, and see the puppet’s mouth move, our brains tell us that the sounds are coming from the puppet’s mouth rather than the ventriloquist’s. Ventriloquism is nothing more than merely training so that you can speak words without moving your lips, tongue, or throat in a noticeable way.

I was disappointed that there was nothing more impressive behind ventriloquism, but if nothing else, this experiment and our discussions in class lead me to finally answering a question I had had for a long time.

FEBRUARU 23, 2008

Vision vs. Hearing: The showdown

“Blinness cuts me off from things; deafness cuts me off from people” -Helen Keller

This quote which Professor Boucher put up in class got me thinking about blindness and deafness. If I had to lose one of those senses today, which would I choose? Would Helen Keller’s words ring true for me? Or would the opposite be the path I would choose if faced with this unimaginable choice? This blog entry is not so much about the science of sight or hearing, but about its effects on my world, in my analysis of the choices, I considered how losing either sense would change my world:

Deafness: there’s no question, deafness would change almost every aspect of my life. Right now I’m sitting in my room, listening to a song that I would never again be able to hear. A shout from a friend across a room, or on the paths would go completely unnoticed. Driving a car would become impossible and illegal. I would never be able to hear a friend’s laugh, or a cry for help. Being plunged into a world of complete silence would be terrible. Beyond the simpler sounds, not being able to hear would make going to class extremely difficult, and i would probably have to leave Vanderbilt for a special school for the deaf. I would not be able to listen to instructions from a teacher, or boss, making normal employment impossible. And all of this is without the mention of the inability to hear fire alarms, the screeching brakes of a car hurtling towards you after it ran a red light, or the “fore!” that a golfer hears when an errant 9-iron is heading at them. I believe that Helen Keller felt that this was the sense that separated her most from the world, because for someone who has never been able to hear or see, this is the sense that would lend the most immediate information about the world. being able to hold a conversation with another person would be able to give her insight into the world that she has never had before. However, I believe that had she grown up with all of her senses intact, and only lost them abruptly, as would be the case with myself or anyone else in the class, she would not find her deafness to be the most dabilitating, or isolating sense to lose.

While I do not in any way mean to suggest the deafness would be easy to deal with, or that I could quickly adjust to it and live a normal life, I think that losing the ability to see would be far worse, far more devastating, and far more isolating to me. I spent the last day paying attention to all of the facial expressions I saw on my friends’ faces, and how much information I gathered from them. The smile that told me my friend thought his randwich was particularly mediocre that day, or the worried look that told me my friend was having a hard time with his statistics homework, and every other thing that I am able to read about people from facial expression or body language, without a word being spoken, are so important in my life, that i think losing the ability to see these things would cut me off from people much more than not being able to hear them. While normal conversations with most people would obviously be extremely difficult to have, sign language and lip reading would be able to make up for a portion of the personal conversations I would have if I were deaf, but not being able to see what a person looked like, or to never read a book, or see a painting again, I think would be much more isolating than not being able to hear a song, or listen to a person talk.

Obviously I have no idea what either sensation would truly be like, and I hopefully will never have to experience either. I think that our upcoming experiment involving earplugs will be very interesting, and will give me a better idea of what living with deafness would be like, but I also believe that it will only reaffirm my feeling that if faced with the decision I would sooner give up my ability to hear than i would give up my ability to see. I believe that Helen Keller felt that hearing was the sense that cut her off from people more than vision, because it is the sense that would provide her with more immediate information about the people she knew, but after careful thought, I believe that for a person who has lived their whole life with both senses intact, like me, the loss of the ability to see would cut us off from the world and the peole in it much more than losing the ability to hear would.

FEBRUARY 13, 2008