Published on 12, July, 2020
Do you hear Yanny or Laurel?
clink on link to hear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdvN4WqJh6g
"Yanny or Laurel" is an auditory illusion of a re-recording of a vocabulary word plus added background sounds, also mixed into the recording, which became popular in May 2018.[2] In the brief audio recording, 53% of over 500,000 people answered on a Twitter poll that they heard a man saying the original word "Laurel", while 47% reported hearing a voice saying the name "Yanny".[3] Analysis of the sound frequencies has confirmed that both sets of sounds are present in the mixed recording,[4] but some users focus on the higher frequency sounds in "Yanny" and cannot seem to hear the lower sounds of the word "Laurel". When the audio clip has been slowed to lower frequencies, then the word "Yanny" has been heard by more listeners, while faster playback loudens "Laurel"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanny_or_Laurel
It might be interesting to see if autistic people are more likely to hear one over the other, since we often have acute senses!
I've just tried it with and without hearing aids and heard 'Yanny' both times. As you said, being hearing impaired may have some impact on the response but I'd guess that there is a whole range of 'mediating variables'. Incidentally my hearing at higher frequencies is still really good whereas for low and mid frequencies it's terrible!
Would make sense, my hearing loss is most significant in the higher frequencies and due to the nature of the problem a hearing aid can only do so much as the sounds still need to work their way through my structurally damaged ear to reach my brain.
There's a lot of research into ambisonics - it's been used in the design of synthesisers, audio effects and cinema sound systems to fool the brain into thinking it's hearing something that's not there.
The earliest systems were the 'extra bass' and 'stereo wide' in ancient boom-boxes in the 80s.
I hear Yanny, this is so cool...
According to BBC "The secret, it turns out, is frequency. The part of the sound that makes some people hear Yanny is higher frequency than that which makes some people hear Laurel. As Lars Riecke, assistant professor of audition and cognitive neuroscience at Maastricht University: "If you remove all the low frequencies, you hear yanny. If you remove the high frequencies, you hear laurel. "If your... ears emphasise both the higher and lower frequencies, you can toggle between the two sounds.""
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-44136799
I hear Laurel...
With and without my hearing aid... Was interested to see if that changed anything but apparently not, I could just hear Laurel better!
My hearing, however, is impaired so impossible to know what I would hear if I was autistic with perfect or "normal" hearing...
Btw, I hear Yanny.