Perception generally feels effortless. If you hear a bird chirping and look out the window, it hardly feels like your brain has done anything at all when you recognize that chirping critter on your windowsill as a bird.
In fact, research in Psychological Science suggests that these kinds of audio cues can not only help us to recognize objects more quickly but can even alter our visual perception. That is, pair birdsong with a bird and we see a bird—but replace that birdsong with a squirrel’s chatter, and we’re not quite so sure what we’re looking at.
“Your brain spends a significant amount of energy to process the sensory information in the world and to give you that feeling of a full and seamless perception,” said lead author Jamal R. Williams (University of California, San Diego) in an interview. “One way that it does this is by making inferences about what sorts of information should be expected.”
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