Jordan Timothy R, Thomas Sharon M
College of Medicine, Biological Sciences and Psychology, University of Leicester, Henry Wellcome Building, Leicester LE1 9HN, UK.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2011 Oct;73(7):2270-85. doi: 10.3758/s13414-011-0152-4.
The visible movement of a talker's face is an influential component of speech perception. However, the ability of this influence to function when large areas of the face (~50%) are covered by simple substantial occlusions, and so are not visible to the observer, has yet to be fully determined. In Experiment 1, both visual speech identification and the influence of visual speech on identifying congruent and incongruent auditory speech were investigated using displays of a whole (unoccluded) talking face and of the same face occluded vertically so that the entire left or right hemiface was covered. Both the identification of visual speech and its influence on auditory speech perception were identical across all three face displays. Experiment 2 replicated and extended these results, showing that visual and audiovisual speech perception also functioned well with other simple substantial occlusions (horizontal and diagonal). Indeed, displays in which entire upper facial areas were occluded produced performance levels equal to those obtained with unoccluded displays. Occluding entire lower facial areas elicited some impairments in performance, but visual speech perception and visual speech influences on auditory speech perception were still apparent. Finally, implications of these findings for understanding the processes supporting visual and audiovisual speech perception are discussed.
说话者面部的可见运动是言语感知的一个重要组成部分。然而，当面部的大片区域（约50%）被简单的大面积遮挡物覆盖，以至于观察者无法看到时，这种影响发挥作用的能力尚未得到充分确定。在实验1中，使用完整（未遮挡）的说话人脸以及垂直遮挡同一人脸使其整个左半脸或右半脸被覆盖的显示，研究了视觉言语识别以及视觉言语对识别一致和不一致听觉言语的影响。在所有三种面部显示中，视觉言语的识别及其对听觉言语感知的影响都是相同的。实验2重复并扩展了这些结果，表明视觉和视听言语感知在其他简单的大面积遮挡（水平和对角线遮挡）情况下也能很好地发挥作用。事实上，整个上半面部区域被遮挡的显示所产生的表现水平与未遮挡显示所获得的水平相当。遮挡整个下半面部区域会导致表现出现一些损伤，但视觉言语感知以及视觉言语对听觉言语感知的影响仍然很明显。最后，讨论了这些发现对于理解支持视觉和视听言语感知过程的意义。
