Yany or Laurel ?
Even with various explanations as to why we are all hearing this recording differently, people are still joining in the debate. "CBS This Morning" co-hosts Norah O'Donell and John Dickerson heard "Laurel" while Gayle King heard "Yanny."
Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explains “Audio illusions necessarily exist within time -- you have to play the audio clip over and over again to experience them. Whereas visual illusions can stay static while you examine them or zoom in on them or cover parts of them, so it feels more like you’re in control,” she says. It’s true: The nature of a sound bite makes this debate feel, as she put it, more “slippery.”
Poppy Crum, chief scientist at Dolby Laboratories, said a number of things are causing the divide in the great Yanny/Laurel debate.
First, there's a simple explanation as to why some people hear "Yanny" and some people hear "Laurel."
"People who hear or weight high/mid-high frequency more strongly will hear 'Yanny,'" Crum said. "The perception of 'Laurel' is experienced when the lower frequency information is dominant in the experience."
But there are other reasons, Crum said. Human beings perceive sound differently on a physiological level. This can be attributed to age, gender and other personal demographics that determine how we hear sound. Additionally, external elements like language and dialect can create biases in interpreting sound that change the perceptions in different people.
"Language, dialect, exposure to relevant sounds in someone’s environment, and even gender from the content of our own voices can alter how we experience the exact same information," Crum said
What do You Hear? Yany or Laurel