OT: Yanny or Laurel?

In article , T i m scribeth thus

Yanny hear;)...

Thanks Tony. As I can't hear it (Yanny) at all how high pitched is it OOI? Can you (also) hear any sign of the Laurel?

Cheers, T i m

p.s. This is the direct link to the Youtube vid.

Irrespective of the high-frequency effects on the consonant sounds y and l, I don't understand how people are hearing different *vowel* sounds. I could understand it more if it was laurel (with an O vowel) versus yonny, or larral (with an A vowel) versus yanny.

For the record, I very strongly hear laurel, without even a hint of yanny.

I wonder if we will eventually hear what the speaker *actually* intended to say, like we saw what colour "the dress" was actually. I'd like to hear the same voice say laurel, and then yanny, to determine whether I could detect any difference.

The dress was a very unfair test, because we were being asked to judge what we saw. The people who interpreted the dress as different colours to those that were reproduced in the photo were somehow making mental correction based on prior knowledge of what colour the dress *should* have been and what lighting it had been photographed under (which was different to the light setting on the camera). I don't think it is valid to expect any prior knowledge or compensation and we can only judge as we see, in isolation, as certain RGB combinations. Unless you have something that is *known* to be white, we can't apply any correction. The light part of the dress *was* supposed to be white, rather than the pale blue in the photo, but without prior knowledge of the dress, you can't assume that is the case, in order to correct for it.

I wonder if the people who hear yanny are applying a similar sort of correction.

This supposedly lets you hear both with a slider:

I hear "laurel" usually: with the slider at the extreme right I hear "yelly": never "yanny".

No-one has suggested one reason could be that "laurel" is a /real/ word, whereas "yanny" is a Greek form of "John", usually spelt "Yannis" or, sometimes, "Yanni". IOW a word not familiar to many.

tony sayer explained on 17/05/2018 :

I heard Yonny first time around then when I knew what it was supposed to be, Yanny. I listened a few times, but never heard Laurel at all. I sometimes suffer slight tinnitus

Allowing for distortion and for an American accent, I normally hear "lawrel" (with a slightly extended first vowel, as distinct from the much shorter O vowel that I would say). With the slider at position 9 from the left (where

There is a *lot* of hysteresis in the slider control of

NY formulated on Thursday :

That seems a very odd effect. I heard Yanny all the way to the left, except for the full left position. Moving it to the right, from the extreme left, I heard Laurel from the first three settings on the left on the forth from the left it switched back to Yanny. Weird!

It is weird. As I said, I've *only* heard Laurel so far, no matter how the audio has been manipulated whereas the Mrs, heard alternating words as a particular frequency slot was toggled max / min.

Yup, exactly the same here (weird isn't it)?

I am quite good at those things ... 'magic eye' and other visual effects and tests and also good on those close up image quiz things where they slowly zoom out. I can generally do similar when hearing 'noises' (work out if it was a car being hit in the road outside or a bin being blown over etc) but in this case, it's Laurel no matter how much I try to make it be Yanny.

I'm not sure what that would demonstrate, unless it was the voice that we can't (currently) hear just saying both?

I'm not sure that was the case those was it as like this audio test it was stated what the two words that were being voiced were, after they were first voiced?

Agreed.

Ok.

Some aren't as the Mrs can (apparently) hear each word accurately and repeatedly as the guy plays with the right frequency.

Cheers, T i m

We both only heard Laurel, our total age is 148

I only hear Laurel but if I concentrate it,s more like Yaurel

Hearing probably damaged by attending rock concerts and drag race meetings without ear protection in my younger days.

It was on LBC this morning and one elderly woman rang in to say she had 3 radios on 2 she could hear Laurel and on the 3rd yanny. I've only heard Laurel so far.

Martin wrote on 17/05/2018 :

This link includes an audio filter, so you can filter the high frequencies or the low ones out.

Those hearing lanny suggests their hearing has fairly good, and undamaged. Those only able to hear laurel, suggests their high frequency hearing is not so good.

For my age and using my own tests, I know my high frequency hearing fairly good - despite a life in industry and often riding motorbikes. I blame both for my tinitus.

Laurel on my Smartphone, Yanny on my PC with £5 speakers!

In article , Harry Bloomfield writes

Or from the North East Yanny = Have you any.

Me (50, but with good HF hearing), clearly Yanny - and no indication of Laurel.

Listening to the version where someone did a spectral modification on it to lose the HF content, then I could hear Laurel

I suspect the quality of the playback device also has an impact. On my computer (ok ish 5.1 speaker system) it was much clearer than on a tablet, which sounded a bit more "muddy".

IIUC it a synthesized voice anyway... so presumably designed to be "variable" in its interpretation.

Sometimes its not the top end of the hearing that causes the most effect on perception - but it can be the "notches" where there are gaps in frequency response. That can change the entire character of a sound even if you can still hear the high bits.

Some say it started with a recording by a person for pronunciation on vocabulary.com But AIUI what was posted has been altered (possibly deliberately but possibly also just by lossy re-saving).

In article , T i m scribeth thus

No still Yanny but decent amp and speakers here in this room course you can an frig around with extreme EQ and make it different;!...