Seeing and hearing in language

Here’s a great video illustrating an illusion called the McGurk Effect, in which a sound that is seen to be spoken overrides the sound that is heard. This touches on both the linguistic and the biological sides of anthropology. Not my particular specialty, but interesting nevertheless.

Interestingly, in an episode of Superman: The Animated Series, the character Mxyzptlk is first seen walking through town looking for somebody named “McGurk”. Given that the episode revolved around speaking a very hard to pronounce name, I have to wonder if the reference was simply a coincidence.

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