A dress once turned the internet upside down. Now a confusing audio has done it again, dividing users into two camps: those who hear Yanny and those who hear Laurel. How is that possible? Fortunately, science has an answer.
It all started with the question: "What color is this dress? Blue and black or white and gold?" That question kicked off one of the internet's biggest viral hits and opened the door to several optical illusions that became a rage on social media. Now the debate has reopened in front of a curious auditory illusion that appeared on Reddit and quickly divided the internet. Tune your ears and tell me: Do you hear Yanny or Laurel?
When I first heard it, I clearly heard Yanny, but there are those who hear a Laurel in that audio. What accounts for this notable difference? As always, science has an answer. According to Lars Riecke, professor of hearing and neuroscience at the University of Maastricht, it is not actually an illusion but an ambiguous figure that can be understood in both ways, as happens with the optical illusion of Rubin's Vase (where you can see a vase or two human faces looking at each other).
The key lies in frequency. A low frequency makes us hear Yanny, while a high frequency makes us hear Laurel. That is why younger people, for some reason, hear Yanny, and older adults, who have been exposed to more hearing loss, hear Laurel. In the second video, the audio is played at different speeds; if you remove all high frequencies, you hear Yanny, and if you remove the low frequencies, you will hear Laurel. Riecke clarifies that some of the variations may be due to the audio system reproducing the sound. But part of that also includes the mechanics of your ears and what you expect to hear, so your brain completes what you hear with what it believes it should be. Now that I listen better, I think it says Yammy.
