DIFFERENCES IN SUSCEPTIBILITY TO THE BLENDING ILLUSION AMONG NATIVE HEBREW AND ENGLISH SPEAKERS

This study was designed to explore whether native Hebrew and English s peakers differ in their susceptibility to the blend illusion and in th eir lip-reading of words and cliche sentences. Four lip-reading tests, designed to assess recognition of syllables, words, and overlearned s entences, were administered to two groups of subjects who were matched for age, sex, and educational level. The English-speaking group showe d significantly higher susceptibility to the blending illusion. The so urce of the effect was in the enhanced sensitivity to the auditory inp ut in males along with reduced number of auditory biases in females. N o sex differences in lip-reading of any item of the lip-reading batter y was obtained in native Hebrew speakers. Subjects in both groups perf ormed at the same level in recognizing the words and overlearned sente nces. The result is attributed to the shorter Voice Onset Time values of Hebrew when native listeners would hear acoustic messages prior to discernable lip movements. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.