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    Do You Hear 'Yanny' Or 'Laurel'? A Viral Audio Clip Spurs Ear-Splitting Social Media Debate

    Darpan News Desk, 17 May, 2018 11:36 AM

      The Laurel vs. Yanny debate is taking the internet by storm. It all began on Reddit and expanded across social media.

       

      This voice is either saying the word “laurel” or “yanny” -- and no one can agree which it is.

       

      The most general reason for this seems to simply be that we all have individual brains, ears and audio playback systems -- it’s a complex combination of frequencies that separates the two words, with a lot of variability involved.

       

      Listen for yourself below:

       
       
       

      What do u hear? #YANNY OR #LAUREL #whatdoyouhear #YannyLaurel #weird

      A post shared by Darpan Magazine (@darpanmagazine) on

       
       

      According to the Redditor who started this whole mess, the viral audio was recorded from the Vocabulary.com entry for the word "laurel," meaning that those Team Laurel stalwarts are technically correct.

       

      But that doesn't mean it's not an ambiguous recording. And if you're still just hearing Yanny? That's (probably) totally fine too.

       
       

      Whether you hear Yanny or Laurel is in part due to the volume at which you perceive certain frequencies. The sounds that compose the tinny "Yanny" sound are of a higher frequency than those that compose "Laurel."

       
       

      That's why when some people turn the volume down — thus ridding the clip of much of its bass — they'll hear Yanny. When the volume is turned back up, or if the audio is played on speakers with a higher bass response, they'll probably hear Laurel.

       

       

      It's also important to remember that no two people hear the same things when listening to any given piece of audio. People have varying sensitivities to different frequencies, so your brain may interpret noises differently than others.

       

      Another factor is personal expectation. If you're interested in hearing Laurel, your brain is more likely to pay attention to those sounds. If you're interested in hearing Yanny, it's more likely your brain can pull it off under the right circumstances (sound mixing, speakers, headphones, et cetera).

       

       

      While there may be more science to it than meets the ear, many artists took to Twitter with their definitive answers on the debate.

       

      Katy Perry and Zedd were both team "Laurel," whereas Ryan Adams said it was definitely "Yanny." Like Perry and Zedd, Josh Groban was also team "Laurel" and in his tweet, he recalled the 2015 debate on the dress, which according to him was blue.

       

      Kehlani weighed in that it could be both depending "on what frequencies ur ears pick up." Jesse McCartney also mentioned that it was a matter of frequency, but that he heard "Laurel." Very fittingly, Yanni said that he could only hear "Yanny" -- and that it was #YanniToBeExact.

       

       

      Ellen DeGeneres tweeted everything at her show stopped to see what people heard. She said she heard Laurel. But New Age musician Yanni was in the Yanny camp.

       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
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