Comments on: How our skin helps us to listen

By: ASL4U

ASL4U — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:40:50 +0000

as an Interpreter for the Deaf – I can see how this “sense” of air through the skin works linguistically for those who cannot hear as well… Deaf people use alot of mouth blowing, slow and fast hand movements and hand/arm impacts (which causes puffs of air around the signs)… signs look different when you attempt to sign in such a way that reduces either the sound or the force of those impacts and movements… change the air flow, and you’ve dampened the “language”…
very cool article – and very cool research!

By: Christine

Christine — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:32:41 +0000

The way I read it, we use the tactile information to imply lack of voicing (which is still really cool). As to the fact that we can distinguish these sounds when we can’t feel the aspiration, I think the point isn’t that we “need” to feel the airflow, but that feeling the airflow gives us that extra bit of speech information that can make the difference in understanding. Could have applications in all sorts of situations where speech communication is compromised and accurate transmission is crucial.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:44:40 +0000

To expand on what Dougal said, the main linguistic difference between the phonemes /p/ and /b/ is a voiceless sound vs a voiced sound. However, when you added the voiced vowel of ‘a’ (and vowels in English are always voiced), the voiceless phoneme /p/ becomes partially voice and the syllables ‘pa’ and ‘ba’ become a lot more similar.

By: Kapitano

Kapitano — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:39:57 +0000

“syllables like “ba” and “da” are simply versions of “pa” and “ta” without the aspirated puffs.”
Not quite. The phonemes /b/, /d/ and /g/ are voiced – the vocal cords vibrate as we enunciate them. The phonemes /p/, /t/ and /k/ can be thought of as unvoiced versions – that is, as identical to /b/, /d/ and /g/ in what we do with lips, tongue and teeth, but different only in that the vocal cords do not vibrate.
(Actually there are very slight differences in enunciation between voiced consonants and their unvoiced equivalents, just to make things more complex for those of us who study phonology.)
In English, unvoiced plosive consonants – /p/, /t/ and /k/ – are usually aspirated, and the corresponding voiced sounds are not. One complication is that the /p/ in “Pit” is heavily aspirated, but the /p/ in “Spit” is very lightly aspirated – the same with “Top” and “Stop”, “Kit” and “Skit”.
Some languages, for instance Spanish, don’t aspirate their plosives at all.

By: L

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:07:22 +0000

It may be the reason why we get such unbearable goose pimples when someone scratches the blackboard. Someone had suggested it was a fear response and I was not at all convinced by that..now this is much more likely.
As far as normal speech/sound is concerned, how can we then hear nuances of music over head phones?

By: Nigel

Nigel — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:32:22 +0000

Normally when people are conversing they are standing some distance apart, they may not be facing one another, and most of their skin is covered by clothing. They may well also be in an environment where there are all sorts of other air currents. Yet they usually seem to understand one another. I am very skeptical as to whether this phenomenon plays any role in normal speech understanding. (Unlike the McGurk effect, which clearly does.)

By: Lilian Nattel

Lilian Nattel — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:34:57 +0000

That’s interesting. I wonder how hearing is affected when watching tv where there are visual cues but no touch.

By: Donald Derrick

Donald Derrick — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:48:32 +0000

As one of the authors of the article above, I want to thank Ed Yong for the quality of this article. We’ve seen many news stories about our research at this point, and this is the best and most accurate piece we’ve seen to date.
I also want to address the second comment because it involves a very important observation: the tiny puffs of air used in our experiment are about as unimportant as anyone can imagine – simulating the very least significant thing produced during a speech act. Yet our brains can still integrate that information in speech perception, and these are things that we do when we speak and perceive speech that we are not even aware of.
Here is an article with quotes from researchers who really understood the significance of this research:
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100249960

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:18:53 +0000

Dougal – not at all. Don’t mind it if people point out cases where I’ve gone all writerly at the expense of accuracy. I’ll read the links you suggest.

By: Dougal

Dougal — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:15:25 +0000

Sorry about the patronising end to the last post (“If you’re wanting to get your head around it a bit more…”!).
On a more relevant note, it occurred to me that this study also relates to the “McGurk effect” where vision influences speech perception.
If your readers are interested, they can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGurk_effect
Cheers,
Dougal