Laurel or Yanny

What do you hear?

  • Laurel

    Votes: 27 69.2%
  • Yanny

    Votes: 8 20.5%
  • Somthing Else

    Votes: 4 10.3%

  • Total voters
    39
  • Poll closed .
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Just another Moderator
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Well my daughter today brought this up and said she only hears yanny. I played it and I was hearing laurel laurel laurel and she said that's ridiculous it is saying yanny yanny yanny. Then my wife was brought in (also heard yanny) and my Mother in law, and she heard yelly.

This is quite interesting (I saw another version of this but now can't find it) YouTube What is really odd is that it works the opposite way for my wife and daugher to what it does for me.

As the frequency goes down I hear it start to change to yelly, but it has a very sharp cutoff coming back the other way where it changes from yelly to laurel. As it goes down for my Wife and Daughter they start to here Laurel.

Going up all I hear is it get higher pitched Laurel I never hear it change to yanny.

This spectrogram is also interesting, and I think clearly shows that the content is actually Laurel with some additional high frequency noise. (from here Laurel or Yanny? What you hear could depend on your hearing loss - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) )
attachment.php


I have hearing loss above about 13Khz, but I'm pretty sure my hearing up to 6K is just fine. I don't think this can be explained by hearing loss as people claim, it is I would say more likely that some people's brains filter out the noise more than others.

It would be very interesting to see what a group of people who had not heard it before and were not given any suggestions (ie do you hear laurel or yanny) before listening to it, made it out to be.

Tony.
 

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It is Laurel, but that's not what's interesting. What's fascinating is how the audio quality and pitch can affect what you hear.
With no prompting I heard Yarry. Very distinct. Later, on better speakers I heard Laurel. In fact I've heard it shift from yarry to laurel on the same speakers/same clip. Can't explain that.

Tony, thanks for the spectrograms. They help with seeing what's there and what isn't.
 
I **clearly** hear "Laurel", very articulate, and there is no way any random noise mixed with it can make it simulate Yenny.

NOTHING leading to that in the vocal intelligibility band, and any noise above what my cheesy plastic PC speakers can reproduce is irrelevant.

At most it would still be "Laurel mixed with hissing sibilant screechy noise" which is what they hint at, but if so, it´s , say, 20 to 40dB too weak for that and in any case our brain easily concentrates on the intelligibility band if needed (250/2500Hz) and processes anything else out.

EDIT: waited 10 minutes and listened again: Laurel all the way.

Not only the high frequency content or possible distortion, the "LO" dypthong has percussive attack because it starts with the tongue against palate and upper teeth blocking air and explosively releasing it into a resonant cavity tuned to make the letter "O" , which is being fed the proper squarewave produced by vibrating vocal chords, while "YE" starts with a higher frequency vocal chord vibration injected into a mid-high frequency tuned cavity, with tongue near but not touching palate, its tip slightly above upper teeth, then seamlessly tuning lower by lowering tongue tip to below lower teeth level, so structure and development is completely different.

Won´t waste time on "nny" vs "rel" because just the important difference on the first half of the word discredits one can be confused by the other.
 
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I **clearly** hear "Laurel", very articulate, and there is no way any random noise mixed with it can make it simulate Yenny….

This is how it appeared to me the first time I heard it (post #7). I listened over and over and over and it was super clear and couldn't in any way whatsoever be anything other than Laurel.

Like the spinning dancer illusion, I tried to 'will' it to be Yanny but I couldn't.

Later that evening it got a mention on the news. It was Yanny. So clear and obvious. Weird.

Back on the laptop, same link and it was Yanny and has been ever since. I can shove foam earplugs in that cut most of the HF and its still Yanny.

I have no explanation at all for what happened.
 
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Joined 2017
On my panasonic tv I hear Laurel but the first time that I heard it I wasn't prepared mentally and I heard "Yaurel".


The people who voted Yanny are focusing too hard on what isn't there and are using their imagination weather consciously or unconsciously to "fill in the gaps". Which is a trait I wish I still had but I'm glad I don't anymore, just like I don't believe in Santa Claus anymore though I wish I still did.
 
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Just another Moderator
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Well my sister in law came over tonight, we decided to do an unbiased test and not tell her either of the things it might be. She immediately said Laurel. My wife (who has only ever heard Yanny) said "it's a trick it is different now, I clearly hear Laurel". I assured her that it sounded exactly the same as before and she wouldn't believe me until her mum said It's still Yelly :D We asked my 6 yo nephew what he heard, and he couldn't really describe it. He could not hear an actual word at all. We asked him do you hear Laurel or Yanny, and he said no, nothing like that.

After about 30 seconds my Wife said It's changed back to Yanny! So weird!! everyone else heard the same thing (Laurel or Yelly) consistently during the time it changed for her.

edit: It's definitely MUCH better value when there are people in the room who hear the opposite to what you do!!

Tony.
 
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Like Mooly, this keeps getting stranger for me. Now, on the same computer speakers I once heard laurel, I now hear yanny no matter how far away I am from the speakers . Complete reversal.

I always hear "Yelly" right from the first recording I heard.

The brain is good at making sense of ambiguous sights or sounds.
It fills in the gaps itself.
It like looking at words with no vowels and still making sense of the words.
 
I always hear "Yelly" right from the first recording I heard.
This is the strange part for me. I was expecting to hear laurel. I had heard it before, I was going to hear it again. I heard nothing but yanny.

This morning, just before typing this, I hear laurel, and only laurel.

I will no longer try and figure it out
 
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