The Talking Doll

Dear Senserely Yours, 

Hi! My name is Jessica and my son just had his 6th birthday party. One of the magic acts for the party was a ventriloquist and his puppet. My son wanted to get the "talking doll" for his next birthday. I explained to him that the doll was not talking and the voice came from the man that was holding the puppet. He believed me but now I'm starting to wonder how the ventriloquist does his illusion. I hope you can explain it to me!

Jess

Ventriloquist, Jeff Dunham, and Achmed

Dear Jess, 

First of all, I am glad that you hired a good ventriloquist for your son's birthday and that he wasn't afraid of it. I know some children who get scared of puppets.

Believe it or not, what you, your son, and the rest of the guests experienced is called the ventriloquism effect. The ventriloquism effect or visual capture happens when a sound seems to be coming from a certain visual source, even when the sound is actually coming from another location (Goldstein, 2010). In your situation, it would appear that the doll is talking, when in fact, the voice is coming from a talented actor. The image of the puppet’s mouth captures the ventriloquist’s voice. Another example of the ventriloquism effect would be when you watch TV, you perceive the voices coming from the actors lips, but in reality, they are coming from the speakers on the sides. What’s amazing is that you don’t even notice this difference!

Because the ventriloquism effect requires different sensory modalities, seeing and hearing, it is more generally referred to as an intersensory bias. Your eyes can tell your brain where a sound is coming from more convincingly than your ears can. (Warren, Welch, & McCarthy, 1981)

You might be wondering how does your brain “trick” you into thinking the voice is coming from the puppet. Well, a study done by Duke University found that sound localization is greater affected by feedback than synchrony (Hartsoe, 2013).  This means that the visual feedback you get from trying to find a sound with your eyes has a stronger effect than visual stimuli presented at the same time with sound. Looking at the puppet during a ventriloquism performance plays a role in causing the shift in where you hear the voice.

You can see how our different modalities interact to help us perceive the world better. Isn’t it amazing how the brain uses different information, like your eye movements and what you see to help you hear? I hope I explained the ventriloquism well, Jess. Until next time!

REFERENCES:

Goldstein, E.B. (2010). Sensation and Perception. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Cengage Learning

Hartsoe, S. (2013). Why We Look At The Puppet, Not The Ventriloquist. Retrieved from: http://today.duke.edu/2013/08/hearingstudy

Warren, D. H., Welch, R. B., & McCarthy, T. J. (1981). The role of visual-auditory “compellingness” in the ventriloquism effect: Implications for transitivity among the spatial senses. Perception & Psychophysics, 30(6), 557-564.