Article
The effect of eye-gaze direction on speech perception (en)
* Presenting author
Abstract:
In most daily situations we are moving our eyes to capture different visual information. Previous studies have shown interactions between the eye-gaze direction and auditory processing. The eye-gaze direction has been shown to modulate activity to acoustic stimuli in the auditory cortex of monkeys. In humans, decreased thresholds of binaural lateralization cues and improved accuracy of understanding series of digits in the presence of other speech has been shown. Here, we investigated the effect of the eye-gaze direction on speech perception of single digits and 4-digit streams while directing the gaze at different directions containing either speech or non-speech stimuli. Results show improved speech intelligibility when gaze direction and auditory target direction are identical in comparison to conditions where the gaze is pointed at a different direction. No differences were found comparing single digits and 4-digit streams. Presenting speech or non-speech stimuli at the gaze direction did not affect the speech intelligibility results. These findings demonstrate the influence of the gaze direction on speech perception even in the absence of visual information.