
A Linguist Explains Why 'Laurel' Sounds Like 'Yanny' - sethbannon
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/dont-rest-on-your-laurels/560483/?single_page=true
======
tristanj
The NYT has an excellent interactive demo that lets you listen between both
"yanny" and "laurel". There is a slider of how much "yanny" and how much
"laurel" you want to hear. I was not able to hear the other word until I
played around with this demo.

Interestingly, after playing with the demo long enough, I could hear both
words spoken at the same time.

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/16/upshot/audio-...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/16/upshot/audio-
clip-yanny-laurel-debate.html)

~~~
smallnamespace
I had an odd experience where I would get hysteresis that depended on how fast
I adjust the slider. Did anyone else get this?

E.g. if I start on the 'yanny' side and very slowly move it down, I hear
'yanny' all the way down to the 'laurel' side.

If I pause for a few seconds, I finally start hearing 'laurel', and can hear
all the way to the other end too. However, moving the slider a bit more breaks
the illusion.

~~~
pjrule
Indeed, I had a similar experience. Perception is strange.

~~~
schoen
I had a similar experience too, but I'm not positive whether it's based
entirely on perception (which is certainly possible) or some kind of bug in
the demo. It would be nice to save individual Ogg files at particular points
on the continuum and try more of a blind test to see how much influence there
is from what we've just heard before. (I guess I could generate those myself
easily enough with sox or something...)

~~~
Mysterix
While I was using the slider on my computer, I kept a laurel/yanny video
playing on my phone

=> I think I can confirm there is no bug in the demo.

~~~
schoen
Wow, I experimented with it more and it's a matter of context, just as you and
other people in this thread have described. That's really striking. Thanks for
confirming that it's not a bug.

This is maybe an even more extreme phenomenon (from the same subreddit that
was apparently involved in making the Laurel/Yanny thing go viral this past
week):

[https://www.reddit.com/r/blackmagicfuckery/comments/8jxzee/y...](https://www.reddit.com/r/blackmagicfuckery/comments/8jxzee/you_can_hear_brainstorm_or_green_needle_based_on/)

With this video, I find that I consistently hear whichever phrase I'm thinking
of at the moment! (In this case either "brainstorm" or "green needle".)

Edit: Also, if anyone in this thread likes this stuff then you might really
enjoy

[https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/91513-behaves-so-
strangely](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/91513-behaves-so-strangely)

if you've never heard it before (or even if you have).

------
rcthompson
The article is wrong (edit: it might be more complicated; see discussion
below). The reason you can hear both is because someone took the high
frequencies of "yanny" and combined them with the low frequencies of "laurel".
If you apply appropriate high-pass and low-pass filters, you will consistently
hear yanny and laurel respectively (assuming your speakers/headphones are
capable of reproducing all the required frequencies and your ears are capable
of hearing them). Essentially, it's the audio equivalent of the
Einstein/Monroe illusion [1]. So this audio illusion doesn't imply that yanny
sounds like laurel any more than the visual illusion implies that Einstein
looks like Marilyn Monroe. It might be incidentally true that yanny and laurel
do in fact sound similar (and this may in turn make the illusion more
convincing), but you could probably do the same trick with any two words that
have similar cadences, no matter how different they sound.

[1]: [http://www.123opticalillusions.com/pages/albert-einstein-
mar...](http://www.123opticalillusions.com/pages/albert-einstein-marilyn-
monroe.php)

~~~
Grue3
The audio was derived entirely from a recording of a man saying "laurel" (can
be heard here: [1]). There's no recording of him saying "yanny" because it
isn't a word. The high frequencies of "laurel" _do_ in fact sound like
"yanny".

[1]
[https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/laurel](https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/laurel)

~~~
rcthompson
Well, if someone doctored a recording of "laurel" to make it sound like
"yanny" and then mixed it back into the original recording of laurel (or did
something mathematically equivalent), then maybe both the article _and_ my
comment are correct.

~~~
tristanj
Mixing two audio files is contrary to what the people who posted this to
instagram & twitter stated they did.

------
walrus01
another example of a similar phenomenon:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/blackmagicfuckery/comments/8jxzee/y...](https://www.reddit.com/r/blackmagicfuckery/comments/8jxzee/you_can_hear_brainstorm_or_green_needle_based_on/)

~~~
stdclass
I can't hear "needle", no matter how much I concentrate on it.

The is a clear S in there, also I can clearly hear it's two syllables - where
do you guys hear the third?

~~~
dspig
the timing is different - the S becomes the EE in needle

------
jpindar
I find that I have to use good headphones to get repeatable results. Otherwise
I can hear the same clip differently from one repeat to the next, which is
really weird.

Using Audacity and my Sennheisers, a notch filter from about 500 to 1000 Hz
reliably changes laurel to yanny in the clip that's being shared on Twitter.
There is an intermediate setting where I can hear both at once.

The original source from
[https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/laurel](https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/laurel)
stays laurel no matter what I do.

~~~
rimliu
I first heard this clip on my headphones (some cheap SONY at the office). It
was definitely "Laurel". Then while driving home I hear the bit on BBC about
this and when it plays over the radio a hear "yanny".

------
jccalhoun
one of my favorite audio illusions involves a sentence that has been distorted
[https://soundcloud.com/whyy-the-pulse/an-audio-
illusion](https://soundcloud.com/whyy-the-pulse/an-audio-illusion)

~~~
rxhernandez
There must be something wrong with my head. It sounds like a computer
distorted sound every single time I hear it (except of course when they
announce they are playing the clean version).

------
pcunite
Apparently, here is the original source.

[https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/laurel](https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/laurel)

~~~
imron
Thanks. That's the first recording that allowed me to hear Laurel.

------
subway
I'm a touch creeped out. Initially I could only hear Yanny, then I listened to
the varied pitches started with -30, and ending on +40. On the first pass,
everything through +30 sounded like Yanny, with a distinct shift to Laurel at
+40. Walking it backward, I'm no longer able to hear Yanny at all.

------
cpeterso
Another auditory illusion is the Shepard tone, which has overlapping sine
waves that sound like the tone is descending or ascending without end.
Wikipedia has a sample:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone)

~~~
jpindar
MyNoise.net also has that, along with some other interesting audio effects.

[https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/shepardAudioIllusionToneGe...](https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/shepardAudioIllusionToneGenerator.php)

------
pcunite
What I find just as interesting is how this "went viral". Nearly every
publication has a story on it. How did they all decide to publish - at nearly
the same time? There has been no lead up here, just instantaneous.

~~~
maxerickson
I think it pretty much comes down to social media. All the people that are
publishing initially saw it at about the same time and it seemed like
something that would get the clicks.

------
Kaibeezy
There seems to be a lot of discussion and effort around a method to allow
people who hear it one way to hear it the other: pitch shifting, change
volume, different speakers, etc. I found a simple one, that worked with a
basic laptop speaker and middle-aged ears.

If you hear "Yanny", put your hands over your ears. The tighter your hold them
down, the more high frequencies are filtered out and you will hear "Laurel".

You can modulate that to hear both. Might work the other way too. Cup your
hands and aim them at the speakers so you get more high frequency. Someone
give it a try, eh?

~~~
dwringer
I agree that muting or muffling allows the presumably original recording (of
"Laurel") to come through better. I was hearing a nasally high-pitched "yanny"
with a very faint low frequency monotone "laurel" until I heard it on a
smaller speaker from across the room, when it was suddenly a normal speaking
voice saying "Laurel".

Surprised there wasn't more discussion here about it that I could find. Seems
like this was possibly found in a study of adversarial examples for audio
codecs/speech processing systems?

~~~
comex
Nope, it's just a crappy recording:

[https://www.wired.com/story/yanny-and-laurel-true-
history](https://www.wired.com/story/yanny-and-laurel-true-history)

------
cema
I am another one of those cases who hear "laurel" for most of the spectrum and
something like "yelly" at the extreme right side.

After hearing "yelly" at the rightmost position of the slider I still hear
"yelly" as it slides to the left, becoming "laurel" at about one third of the
way. After that, as I slide back to the right, I do not hear "yelly" until the
rightmost position.

------
pietroglyph
It's strange to think that this going viral might be the widest reaching
implication of the entire life of the person who originally posted this.

(A story on the origin of this, if you're interested:
[https://www.wired.com/story/yanny-and-laurel-true-
history/](https://www.wired.com/story/yanny-and-laurel-true-history/) )

------
yumraj
On the Laptop (Macbook Pro) speakers at the midpoint I consistently hear
Yanny. Upon reading a comment below, I decided to try earphones, in which
case, my midpoint became Laurel.

Update: The weirdest thing is that now on my speakers also, at the midpoint I
have become a Laurel person..

------
InfiniteBeing
I initially heard yanny a couple of times and then laurel. Then I was able to
switch a few times before laurel won out ever after with a yanny whisper.

With the NYT slider I was able to adjust my yanny boundary leftward through
some training.

------
KC8ZKF
I've heard all possible permutations (Laurel, Yanny, neither, and both)
depending on the putative source. All on the same machine. Compression and
transcoding might be a bigger variable than psycho-acoustics or age.

------
fouc
So this is the auditory version of blue/yellow dress.

~~~
Dylan16807
I disagree. That was an example of people making different assumptions and
being very stubborn. This is actually hitting deep flaws in audio processing
and it's exceptionally difficult to see/hear the alternative. You can't just
say "oh, the lighting seems like X but might be Y", it can be impossible to
hear the sounds that make up the other version.

~~~
danso
Sorry, but the people who see white/gold aren't just being "stubborn". It is
difficult for them to see the alternative.

~~~
Dylan16807
You're reading bias that isn't there. Both were equally stubborn!

------
beaker52
I hear "Yarry" ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

