This is a Thing: Yanny or Laurel?

[Gingersnap]

You might remember the dress color debate of a few years ago:

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Apparently, some saw this as a black and blue dress but some saw a white and gold dress. It was a fun mix-up for about 5 minutes.

Now, we have the sound/name debate:

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What do you hear?

[Newman]

Very clever. I've heard it a few times, and on different speakers it sounds different. On our TV, with its tiny speakers, it's Yanny.

I have a hunch if I recorded it, and looped it through a speaker with a good equalizer I could coax both words out in turn. Laurel is much more in the back of your throat, i.e., lower frequencies dominate. Yanny is the opposite.

If you play them backward you'll hear, "Paul is dead."

[Celeste Chalfonte]

Neither.

[Newman]

Neither.

Cancel the "mute" button.

[Tom Servo]

I heard Yanny when I first heard it, via my phone's tiny little speaker. Then I watched a video on YouTube from an audio engineer deconstructing the audio and it sounded like Laurel, since my setup here is a lot more robust. Now no matter what, I hear Laurel.

According to the engineer, the audio is actually both words at the same time. The lower frequencies carry the Laurel audio and the higher ones the Yanny. So depending on your audio setup, and hearing ability, your brain will process one or the other.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

Cancel the "mute" button.

I did. It sounded vaguely like "yaowly."

[Celeste Chalfonte]

I heard Yanny when I first heard it, via my phone's tiny little speaker. Then I watched a video on YouTube from an audio engineer deconstructing the audio and it sounded like Laurel, since my setup here is a lot more robust. Now no matter what, I hear Laurel.

According to the engineer, the audio is actually both words at the same time. The lower frequencies carry the Laurel audio and the higher ones the Yanny. So depending on your audio setup, and hearing ability, your brain will process one or the other.

Now that makes sense. Those of us who are losing our hearing at the extremes of the speech range hear a combination of mid-range tones.

[Gingersnap]

I'm sure the device we use influences what we hear.

Honestly, to me it sounded like "yammy" but I could mentally tweak that to "yanny" since that was one of the choices.

Mr. Snaps heard "laurel" on his device and claims that I'm insane or intentionally tricking him (which I would do if I wanted to spend the time on it).

[gary m]

... and claims that I'm insane...

This was ever in doubt?

[Gingersnap]

This was ever in doubt?

Let's just say that I wouldn't be telling Sven and Ole jokes to the judge during a sanity hearing.

[scott]

I heard yanny the first time on 3 different setups including high quality headphones. Even when I listened to the audio deconstruction I still heard yanny. Then two hours later all I heard was laurel - sometimes with a hint of yanny in the background.

Now I hear yanny again.

Very strange.

[Norm dePlume]

I heard "Kill the mall." Not sure what that means.

[Gingersnap]

I listened to it on Mr. Snap's device and I heard 'laurel' so it's clearly some kind of frequency/speaker difference.

It's still pretty fun because in English the components or phonetics between the two words don't make much sense at all yet we're still hearing a synthetic voice sounding interchangeable.

[scott]

I listened to it on Mr. Snap's device and I heard 'laurel' so it's clearly some kind of frequency/speaker difference.

I did everything possible to control for that and I've still bounced back and forth. Sometimes it's yanny and sometimes it's laurel even in the isolated versions where just the highs and just the lows are played.

It's still pretty fun because in English the components or phonetics between the two words don't make much sense at all yet we're still hearing a synthetic voice sounding interchangeable.

Yes, very neat.

[Adam]

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