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Updated: Jun 3, 2026
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Stimulating the Lip Motor Cortex with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Published on: June 14, 2014
Face and mouth inversion effects on visual and audiovisual speech perception
L D Rosenblum1, D A Yakel, K P Green
1Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside 92521, USA. rosenblu@citrus.ucr.edu
Summary
Upright facial context influences visual speech perception. Manipulating mouth and face orientation, specifically an upright mouth on an inverted face, disrupted syllable identification, confirming context
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Speech Perception
Background:
- Face perception is highly sensitive to orientation, with inverted faces appearing abnormal.
- Previous research indicates specific facial features, like the mouth, are crucial for recognizing faces.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if orientation-dependent face perception principles apply to visual speech perception.
- To determine the role of upright facial context in processing visual speech.
Main Methods:
- Experiments used visual and audiovisual syllable identification tasks.
- Stimuli included faces and mouths in various upright and inverted combinations.
- Four presentation conditions were tested: upright face-upright mouth, inverted face-inverted mouth, inverted face-upright mouth, and upright face-inverted mouth.
Main Results:
- Identification of some visual syllables was disrupted specifically by the upright face-inverted mouth configuration.
- This disruption suggests that the upright facial context impacts visual speech perception.
- A follow-up experiment with isolated mouths supported these findings.
Conclusions:
- Upright facial context plays a significant role in visual speech perception.
- The brain's sensitivity to facial orientation may extend to processing spoken language visually.
- Facial configuration is important for both face recognition and visual speech comprehension.
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