Visual speech cues play an important role in speech recognition, and the McGurk effect is a classic demonstration of this. In the original McGurk & Macdonald (Nature 264, 746–748 1976) experiment, 98% of participants reported an illusory “fusion” percept of /d/ when listening to the spoken syllable /b/ and watching the visual speech movements for /g/. However, more recent work shows that subject and task differences influence the proportion of fusion responses. In the current study, we varied task (forced-choice vs. open-ended), stimulus set (including /d/ exemplars vs. not), and data collection environment (lab vs. Mechanical Turk) to investigate the robustness of the McGurk effect. Across experiments, using the same stimuli to elicit the McGurk effect, we found fusion responses ranging from 10% to 60%, thus showing large variability in the likelihood of experiencing the McGurk effect across factors that are unrelated to the perceptual information provided by the stimuli. Rather than a robust perceptual illusion, we therefore argue that the McGurk effect exists only for some individuals under specific task situations.

Significance: This series of studies re-evaluates the classic McGurk effect, which shows the relevance of visual cues on speech perception. We highlight the importance of taking into account subject variables and task differences, and challenge future researchers to think carefully about the perceptual basis of the McGurk effect, how it is defined, and what it can tell us about audiovisual integration in speech.

视觉语音提示在语音识别中起着重要作用，而麦克古尔（McGurk）效果就是对此的经典证明。在原始的McGurk＆Macdonald（Nature 264，746-748 1976年）的实验中，有98％的参与者在听语音节/ b /并观察/ g /的视觉语音运动时报告了/ d /的虚幻“融合”感。但是，最近的工作表明，主题和任务的差异会影响融合反应的比例。在当前的研究中，我们改变了任务（强迫选择与开放式），刺激集（包括/ d /范例与非）和数据收集环境（实验室与机械特克），以研究McGurk的鲁棒性影响。在整个实验中，使用相同的刺激引起McGurk效应，我们发现融合反应的范围从10％到60％，因此在与刺激所提供的感知信息无关的因素中，经历McGurk效应的可能性存在很大差异。 。而不是强大的知觉错觉，

启示：这一系列的研究重新评估了经典的麦格克效应，它显示了视觉提示与语音感知的相关性。我们强调考虑主题变量和任务差异的重要性，并挑战未来的研究人员仔细考虑McGurk效应的知觉基础，其定义方式以及它可以告诉我们有关语音视听整合的信息。