IF you are into Facebook or social media, you probably have seen posts stating “it’s Yanny” or “it’s Laurel.”
It has become a viral hit that has generated a lot of arguments. It started out as an audio clip shared on Reddit, and it simply asks whether what you heard being spoken is Yanny or Laurel. Obviously some heard one, some heard the other, and even some say they hear both.
So what exactly is happening? What is causing all these differences from such an inane sound clip? The answer may lie in the frequencies that we hear.
Younger listeners or those with relatively good hearing are more sensitive to high frequencies. Those who belong to this category are most likely to hear the word “Yanny” being spoken. On the other hand, those with relatively poor hearing or who belong to the older demographic will most likely hear “Laurel.” This phenomenon can be observed by manipulating the frequencies on a computer.
If you have an equalizer where you can emphasize the high or low frequency sounds, you will likely hear different things.
On the other hand, what also results in the unclarity was that the audio clip was really a very low-quality recording. The noise in the file results in auditory ambiguity, making it difficult to determine the exact sound being made. If it had been made on a good quality clip, the exact pronunciation would have be clearer.
Moreover, the visual aids presented with the clip poses a significant bias. It directly asks the listener to choose between two sounds, “Yanny or Laurel.” This could influence the way we expect to hear a sound. Even if what we hear is a jumbled up mess, our brain has the amazing tendency to fill up the blank spaces with the sound or word that will make the most sense.
If you happen to hear both “Yanny and Laurel,” this could be due to a whole host of other factors, such as speaker quality and the environment the clip was played.
After all, we do not rely on just our ears but also our brains to process information. Our brain may be one of our most powerful organs but it is not infallible.
Many illusions rely on our cognition to instantaneously process incomplete stimuli from the world around us. Some debates also have attributed that some speakers or audio systems are better at highlighting one word than the other.
These debates may seem trivial, but it is a reflection of how deep our perception indiscriminately affects our judgments.
We are all products of our biology and of our experiences. How we interpret these experiences is what shapes our reality and these perceptual biases affect every aspect of our life. This is reflected in the inane way we may see the color of a dress or in something as grave as the way we make cursory judgments of other people.
In the end, it is how we choose to react to experiences that truly matters. Different viewpoints, rooted in fact, is the cornerstone of a progressive society.
Disagreement is no ground for dismissal, after all.