In addition to acting as a protective barrier for the body against the environment and contributing to the integrity of its structures, the skin acts as a "second ear" capable of receiving sounds through air currents .
According to a group of scientists from the British Columbia University of Vancouver (Canada) led by Bryan Gick, a person "hears" through the skin the small and inaudible air currents created by the interlocutor when speaking, despite the fact that they pass unnoticed by the ear. It is the aspirated syllables (for example "pa" and "ta") that create those air currents that reach the skin surface and allow the completion of the communicative puzzle.
Moreover, the? Auditory touch? it can even confuse us. As shown by Gick's experiments, published today in the journal Nature , when a flow of air reaches the skin of the neck and hands in a fortuitous way at the same moment in which the interlocutor is pronouncing syllables that do not produce any air current (for example "ba" and "da"), the organism usually confuses these syllables with the aspirated ones ("pa" and "ta"). This implies that we unconsciously integrate tactile sensory information with sounds and visual information (gestures, lip movements, etc.) to decipher what we hear.
