McGurk Effect in Native vs. Non-Native German Speakers
Maral Aghvinian
Mentor: Gregory Hickok
Öhström and Traunmüller’s (2007) study is an examination of the audiovisual phenomenon known as the
McGurk Effect, a perceptual phenomenon that demonstrates an interaction occurring between hearing and
vision in speech perception, in the Swedish language. This study shows that non-native speakers struggle
immensely in distinguishing vowel sounds mismatched in roundedness. In the current study, we examine the
effect of roundedness and openness in German speech sounds using native and non-native speakers through
the McGurk Effect. The current data shows that subjects who are non-native, similar to the original Swedish
study, struggle with the mismatched rounded vowel sounds. This experiment depicts the degree of confusion
that can arise when different vowel sounds are dubbed over others, as well as distinguishing roundedness
confusion from openness.