How What You See Can Influence What You Hear

We automatically use more than one of our senses to understand the world around us. When having a conversation, most of us use our ears to listen to what other people are saying. But you might be surprised to know that what you see is also very important in helping you to understand others. This article looks at how hearing and sight are combined and explains how both of these senses help us to understand speech. We demonstrate how important it is to see the faces of people who are talking, particularly when we are in noisy places. This topic has important implications for the wearing of face masks! It is really important that we think about how face masks may affect the ability of people to communicate with each other.