The study, as I understand it, does not actually show that we (literally) hear with our skin. What it shows is that given an auditory stimulus (to the ear), our *judgement* about what we hear can be influenced by stimulation of the skin. This is more obvious by the comparison the article makes with the observation that we 'hear' with our eyes. I'm not sure what it would take show that we really do hear with our skin, but here are two things that would be relevant: (1) If subjects are given no sound, but only the skin-stimulation, would they report something heard? (2) If the subjects are told exactly what was happening, and the original experiment were repeated, would the result be the same? Perhaps if the result changes - eg the subjects might pay more attention to the sound and ignore the skin-stimulation - then we could conclude that the first result was a cognitive phenomenon, not a sensory one (but that is to ignore the possibility of mutual feedback between the two). These things are complicated!

• http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01obpuff.html?ref=