IF YOU have ever tried to mimic Elvis’s trademark lip curl, you will know that it makes talking feel wrong – never mind how you sound. People who have become deaf as adults may use the same sense to retain their speech.
David Ostry and Sazzad Nasir at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, asked five deaf and six hearing adults to say short words while their jaw motion was disturbed by a robotic arm. The nudge was too gentle to affect speech, with most people not realising that their jaw was being moved a couple of millimetres.
Nevertheless, after several hundred…
