Laurel or Yanny?! (audio illusion)

This is the latest thing to take over the internet. There is a (modified) audio clip of a person speaking. Some people hear the word "laurel", while others hear "yanny".

I know! They're not even close in pronunciation!

I played the video and I actually hear "yammy" (with Ms instead of Ns).

I've tried using different speakers, turning the volume up/down, but... it's quite clearly "yanny" or "yamny" and nothing like "laurel". Yet I asked a friend, and she hears "laurel" only. Then a fight broke out with her husband who hears "yanny", and everyone thought everyone else was going mad.

So which do you hear?! (And where are you from -- maybe accent has something to do with it... although not in the case where my friend has the same accent as me!)

Here's the link to the news article... Ohhhh, whaaat?! I listened to it again and I heard "laurel" quite clearly and distinctly... Then I adjusted the volume up, down, back to where it was, all over the place... and I can only hear "yammy"... quite clearly...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-44136799

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM38OFDKU20

Witchcraft! Am I going mad?! What do you hear?! LAUREL or YANNY (or YAMMY)...? And can you mentally switch between them, like when you switch your perception when looking at an optical illusion?

I knew someone was eventually going to do this. :tongueout:

Scaramouche said:

I knew someone was eventually going to do this. :tongueout:

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And you hear "laurel"?! This is the strangest thing in the world everrr!!!

My son just played this for me on his phone and I hear is yamrel????????

Only Laurel, but truth be told, it can actually be both.

Based on the clip itself, it's pretty blatantly Laurel. I was wondering if the people from the Yanny camp might have been trolling so I did a few follow up searches, apparently both are correct under certain circumstances, I don't know what that says about your Yammy though lol

Apparently, when you adjust the bass levels and make the clip deeper you can clearly hear Yanny, I have found some clips like this and can verify, it does sound like Yanny when pitched down. If you pitch it up just slightly past normal you hear Laurel. As a standalone clip, however, I only hear Laurel and it's pretty crystal clear, so I wonder what is making people hear Yanny or Yammy or Yamrel in it's unmodified version.

I'm sure there's some sort of auditory science involved or something, but I haven't seen anyone give a clear explanation as to why people listening to the unmodified clip are hearing it one way vs. the other.

I heard Laurel early in the morning on my bedroom Bluetooth speaker and then Yanny throughout the day on my kitchen TV. I think Yanny uses very high frequencies, something only young people should be able to hear, but I mostly hear Yanny. My bedroom speaker has the bass boosted so that may be why I heard Laurel on it.

The wife and I just listened to the clip on my reference monitors. She distinctly heard "laurel", while I heard "Yaurel".

tiny said:

And you hear "laurel"?! This is the strangest thing in the world everrr!!!

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Hey! I thought this was an anonymous poll!

I heard, "pizza. Tiny's paying."

Just listened to the claimed original at vocabulary.com and that's clearly 'laurel', albeit badly spoken, but it's nowt like the clip that's doing the rounds.

I can hear both pretty clearly, though Yanny is more distinct. The yanny pitch is kind of an annoying Donald Duck voice while the laurel is really really deep and robotic.

Then again, I was also one of those who saw gold and blue...

Only LAUREL! My wife hears yanny though.

I'm still thinking about the dress color and now this comes up! :laugh: