A constraint-based explanation of the McGurk effect

This paper gives an Optimality-Theoretic explanation of the McGurk-effect, a robust phenomenon that illustrates the low-level interaction of visual and auditory cues in speech perception. Perception tableaus illustrate the interaction between cue constraints (which evaluate the relation between sensory and phonological representations) and language-specific structural constraints (which evaluate phonological representations). The procedure of lexicon-driven perceptual learning then explains how the constraints automatically come to be ranked as they are. Finally, it is shown that the same structural and cue constraints are used in production by the speaker.