Visual capture or the Ventriloquism effect

There is an overlap in vision and hearing. The Ventriloquism effect or visual capture is when a sound appears to be coming from a visual source, but it is actually coming from a different location. For example, when you are watching a movie in the theater, you are looking at the screen while the speakers are producing the sound at opposite ends of the theater. Ventriloquists master the art of speaking with barely moving their lips and using other cues and visual stimuli in order to convince their audience that a sound is coming from a seen location rather then the ventriloquist’s mouth. When a comedian like Jeff Dunham moves his puppet’s mouth, our vision is focused on the puppet because we usually experience a voice or sound coming from a moving object. We use our environmental experience to match the sound of Jeff’s voice to the moving puppet. Vision influences where a sound is coming from.