Audiovisual perception of congruent and incongruent Dutch front vowels.

Purpose: Auditory perception of vowels in background noise is enhanced when combined with visually perceived speech features. The objective of this study was to investigate whether the influence of visual cues on vowel perception extends to incongruent vowels, in a manner similar to the McGurk effect observed with consonants.

Method: Identification of Dutch front vowels /i, y, e, Y/ that share all features other than height and lip-rounding was measured for congruent and incongruent audiovisual conditions.