In 2015, one photo brought chaos to people on the Internet. Viewers split into two factions and conflicted over whether the colors of the item of clothing depicted were black and blue or white and gold.
This war seemed to end finally, but a new headache named “Yanny or Laurel” appeared quite recently. This is a kind of auditory illusion and according to a Twitter poll, 53% of over 500,000 people answered that they heard a man saying the word “Laurel” ,while 47% reported hearing a voice saying the name “Yanny”.
Watch the video embedded below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X_WvGAhMlQ
Originally this audio clip was recorded by Jay Aubrey Jones, an opera singer as one of reference pronunciations produced and published by vocabulary.com in 2007. This strange phenomenon was accidentally found by a 15-year-old boy who posted a description publicly on Instagram on May 11, 2018. The illusion spread like a wildfire and has been debated by many celebrities such as Donald Trump.
Why such a illusion occurs? A lot of scientists and professor suggested various theories. Someone said that “Yanny” can be heard in higher frequencies while “Laurel” can be heard in lower frequencies and someone compared the clip to the Necker Cube or the face/vase illusion, calling it a “perceptually ambiguous stimulus” and other said that the low quality of the recording creates ambiguity.
In fact, surprisingly, by pitch shifting the original audio to higher or lower frequencies, the same listener can hear differently. Which do you hear Yanny or Laurel?
Work Cited
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanny_or_Laurel
Great article. I have not come across the sound illusion before. I heard Laurel but, as the man says, my ears are older!
This topic is very interesting. Although many of my classmates think that it is “Laurel”, I hear as “Yanny”.
I heared both Yanny and Laurel! I wonder if there is any physical differece between people who hear Yanny and Laurel.
It is interesting why some people hear one thing, and some hear another. I hear yanny, and I cannot believe that the same audio sounds like Laurel to others, because Yanny and Laurel do not sound alike at all.
Yanny and Laurel are not much alike. The picture of the dress also does not look like a dress that is in white and gold. It is so interesting how the human body works, which makes each and every one have a different understanding of the same situation.
Interesting topic! I hear Laurel but not everyone hears the same. I want to know how our bodies work when we see or hear things.