Preferred Sensory Modality Influence on the McGurk Effect - Research Paper Example

? Does A Person’s Preferred Sensory Modality During Learning Have An Influence On The Mcgurk Effect? Supervisor: October 13, 2013. Does A Person’s Preferred Sensory Modality During Learning Have An Influence On The Mcgurk Effect? Abstract Existing literature supports existence of McGurk across different factors and the study sought to investigate effects an individual’s preferred sensory modality on McGurk effect. Using a quasi-experimental design on college students, the study measured proportion of correct responses, in congruent and non-congruent sounds, across visually and auditory oriented students. Results identify McGurk effect within visually and auditory oriented students but not across the groups. The study concludes that preferred sensory modality does not affect McGurk effect. Introduction The brain is the central coordinating organ and links different senses. It interprets messages that the sensory organs collects and sends to it and prompts responses through necessary organs or body parts. Different sensory organs can communicate the same message that the brain may integrate into a consistent meaning, an example is a speech that is the hearing, and the visual sensory organ can communicate to the brain. A complication however develops when two or more organs communicate incongruent messages and this is the basis of McGurk effects. An incongruence in the two types of received messages often lead to a third message, a phenomenon referred to as McGurk effect. This paper seeks to investigate the relationship between a person’s preferred sensory modality during learning and experienced MCGurk effect. There exist different learning styles that people assume to aide knowledge development and mode of presentation is one of the factors that moderate learning styles. Materials for different sensory applications exist in learning environments and studies suggest different preferences among students, an indicator that some materials that relates to some sensory organs are more effective that those that relates to other organs. The effectiveness however varies across learners and this marks an identified modal difference learning preferences. Fleming and Mills established this preference and noted students could identify their preferred learning aids. Based on the authors’ applied questionnaires on students, they established that once students identify their preferred learning practices, they realign their behaviour and use the practice more than other learning approaches (Fleming and Mills, 1992). Studies on the relationship between conflicting sensory messages have established incongruence of perceived messages and recipients normally perceived a different message that is a corrupt version of the conflicting received messages. Exposing an audience to a video in which the communicated information through the visual sensory organ differs from the heard information identified development of different information and simple contradictory syllables demonstrates this. The perceived information is often a combination of the two received messages and differs from the perceived messages when recipients are exposed to singe audio or visual messages. McGurk and McDonalds, in their article, ‘Hearing lips and seeing voices,’ explains the empirical scope of the effect. In their stratified study pre-school children, primary school children, and adults over their cognition of contradictory messages from sight and hearing sensory organs, the authors established the McGurk effect across all the groups, and indication of reliability. When exposed audio messages only, participants were accurate in comprehending the messages and more than 90 percent in each category perceived the sounds correctly, degree of perception cognition increasing with age. Significant errors, in perceived messages were however noted in the contradictory audio and visual exposures with all groups recording more that 50 percent errors. Almost 60 percent of pre-school children reported errors in perceived sounds, about 52 percent primary school children reported errors, and more than 90 percent of adults were mixed up between the received messages (McGurk and McDonalds, 1976). A study by Jintao and Ear establishes reliability of McGurk effect and explains that exposure to mismatched audio and visual sounds generate McGurk effects among other constructions. While a recipient may identify the correct sound despite integration of different audio and visual messages, some results identify a combination of both sounds in the two sensory modes while some recipients will mismatch the sounds. The authors identified effects of audiovisual integration on the types of responses (Jintao and Ear, 2009). Investigations on McGurk effect based on a subject’s rationale identify a relationship. Cognitive potentials into sound rationale indicate higher McGurk effects and could be inferred to a person’s potential to identify a preferred sensory modality and application of the modality. Pearl et. al.’s study of McGurk effects on schizophrenia patients illustrates this. The study that compared the effects among patients and sound people noted that cognitively disabled adolescents reported low level McGurk effect than healthy adolescents. The effects among healthy adolescents were further higher than effects among healthy adults, an indication that rationale across the tested groups is a significant factor. The authors further established the highest effects among adolescents to suggest that the effect increases from childhood to adolescence before declining. The fact that adolescence is the prime of active learning suggests a correlation between the effect and scope of learning (Pearl et. al., 2009). Different knowledge bases have also been developed on the relationship between mode of stimuli in information receivership and the level of incongrency that an recipient can develop differences in modes of communication. Frings and Spence identified significance of sensory mode on attained incongruence, contrary to previously developed knowledge (2010). Existing literature identifies different learning modalities and learners’ preference over the modalities. Literature also establishes significance of the McGurk effect and suggests some of the across different groups of people. While limited information exist on effects of sensory modalities on McGurk effect, an inconsistency has been established in the scarce literature. This identifies the need to establish an accurate relationship between sensory modalities and the effect and underlying factors. This study seeks to establish effects of a person’s preferred sensory modality during learning on the McGurk effect. The aim is relevant to the previously developed knowledge that different factors influence the McGurk effect though uncertainty exist on the effects of sensory modality and limited study has been done on the subject within academic environment. The study’s aim is relevant to learners and trainers for identifying sensory modalities among learners and potential McGurk effects that could imply misunderstanding of learnt concepts. It will therefore identify modalities with lower McGurk effects for more congruent learning. The study seeks to explore the following research question. Does a person’s preferred sensory modality have an influence on the McGurk effect? The study will test the following sets of hypotheses to answer the research question. H01: There is no significant difference between visual congruence and visual incongruence HA1: There is a significant difference between visual congruence and visual incongruence H02: There is no significant difference between auditory congruence and auditory incongruence HA2: There is a significant difference between auditory congruence and auditory incongruence H03: There is no significant difference between visual incongruence and auditory incongruence HA3: There is a significant difference between visual incongruence and auditory incongruence Methods Design The study assumed a quasi-experimental design in which participants were subjected to treatment and observation made (Hartas, 2010). There was no control of participants. Two variables were used in the experiment, group, and congruency. Group identified learners by their preferred sensory modality and based on a VARK questionnaire, classified participants into either visual learners or auditory learners. This was the independent variable. Congruency formed the dependent variable, defined consistency in between the offered sound and the participants’ identification and was measured as a proportion of total response. Participants Six hundred and fifty students participated in the experiment that was conducted in class. Three hundred and ninety four of the students were female and the participants’ mean age was 19.6 with a standard deviation of 3. Materials Computers and earphones were the experiment’s apparatus and computer screens offered visual presentations while earphones offered audio presentations. Procedure Participants offered their informed consents before participation in the study. Participants were exposed to video clips, some in which audio and visual sounds were congruent and others in which the sounds were incongruent. They were then asked to identify sounds from the clips and they responses marked as either correct or incorrect. Proportion of sounds that were identified correctly was then measured. Results The mean proportion of correct responses visually oriented participants under congruent observation was 0.98 while the mean correct responses for visually oriented participants under incongruent observations were 0.788. Mean of correct responses for auditory oriented participants was also higher in congruent observation, 0.982, that in incongruent observation, 0.807. The proportions were higher in auditory oriented participants than in visually oriented participants. The following table summarizes the mean responses Table 1: Mean proportion of correct responses Mean SEM SD Visual-Congruent .980 .003 0.055 Auditory-Congruent .982 .003 0.197 Visual-Incongruent .788 .010 0.040 Auditory-Incongruent .807 .010 0.171 The null hypotheses are not rejected for differences across the groups while they are rejected for differences within the groups for a 0.05 level of significance. This is because of the low probability values for correct proportion within the groups, 0.001 within both auditory oriented participants and visually oriented participants. P-value congruence and non-congruence across the groups are 0.569 and 0.145 respectively. The first and the second null hypotheses are therefore rejected to the effect that McGurk effect is significant within visually oriented students and within auditory oriented students. The third null hypothesis is rejected to the effect that the effect does not vary across preferred sensory modality. The following graph summarizes the inferential statistics Graph 1: Inferential statistics for the observations Discussion The study identified students’ different preferences of sensory modality in learning. Within each modality, there was difference in ability to identify the correct sound based on congruence or incongruence in audio and visual aspects of the message, an indicator of the McGurk effects. No significance was however observed across the sensory modalities. Differences within the groups support existing literature that the McGurk effect is significant phenomenon as long as different sensory organs communicate different messages to the brain. The study however undermines Jintao and Ear’s observation that McGurk effects differ across sensory modalities because of failure to establish a significant difference. Application of a significantly large sample size and the randomized approach to sampling establishes reliability of the study to the support of previous literature to Jintao and Ear’s study. The study concludes that a person’s preferred sensory modality during learning does not influence McGurk effect and means that any modality can be effective in students’ studies and a combination of modalities may not confuse students towards misconceptions. References Fleming, N. D., & Mills, C. (1992). Not another inventory, rather a catalyst for reflection. To Improve the Academy 11; 137-155. Frings, C. and Spence, C. (2010). Crossmodal congruency effects based on stimulus identity. Brain Research 1354; 113-122. Hartas, D. (2010). Educational research and inquiry: Quantitative and qualitative approaches. New York, NY: Continuum. Jintao, J. and Ear, L. (2009). Psychophysics of the McGurk and the other audiovisual speech integration effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology 37(4); 1193-1210. McGurk, H., MacDonald, J. (1976). Hearing lips and seeing voices. Nature 264; 746-748. Pearl et. al. (2009). Differences in audiovisual integration, as measured by McGurk phenomenon, among adult and adolescent patients with schizophrenia and age-matched healthy control groups. Comprehensive Psychiatry 50(2); 186-192. Read More