Hearing the name of an object appears to influence whether or not we see it, suggesting that hearing and vision might be even more intertwined than previously thought.

What is not clear, says Gary Lupyan of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, whether language and vision world together to help you interpret what you're seeing, or whether words can actually change what you see.

Lupyan and Emily Ward of Yale University used a technique called continuous flash suppression (CFS) on 20 volunteers to test is whether a spoken prompt could make them detect an image that they were not consciously aware they were seeing.

Studies suggest that words and images are tightly coupled.

CFS works by displaying different images to the right and left eyes: one eye might be shown a simple shape or an animal, while the other is shown visual "noise".

In a similar experiment, the team found that volunteers were more likely to detect specific shapes if asked about them.

The noise monopolizes the brain, leaving so little processing power for the other image, making it invisible.

For example, asking "Do you see a square?" made it more likely than that they would see a hidden square but not a hidden circle.

It suggests that sight and language are intertwined, he says.

James McClelland of Stanford University in California, who was not involved in the work, thinks it is an important study.