Laurel vs Yanny

[Mandolin Cafe]

A surprising trivia tidbit about this thread:

In only 4 days this thread has accumulated 41,922 views, must be some sort of new world's record? Or has the MandolinCafe page-counter gone wonky? Does the 41,922 include the probably-numerous automated search-engine-bot hits too (I got tons of those on my pages when I used to have my own website years ago), or does MandolinCafe filter out the searchbots somehow?



I didn't even click on this thread until today (the title "Laurel vs Yanny" didn't mean anything to me so I just skipped the entire thread, figured it couldn't have been anything interesting with such a non-alluring title), but today I noticed the 41,922 views and I did something I usually avoid, I went into 'lemming' mode (follow the crowd) to see what everyone else was looking at. Interesting stuff.

That traffic has been occurring for 4-5 days now but has largely gone away. On Saturday it was driving our users online by a factor of 3+ our average. As happens on occasion, we got picked up by either a search engine or site that deals in traffic of many multiples and it drove a lot of viewers to us looking for content and were probably a bit disappointed in the chatter here. I spent a little bit of time trying to hunt that down but wasn't able to find anything in Google Analytics that showed where it came from. Not worth the time, really. Most of that traffic had never been here before and won't be in the future. Just the way the internet works some times. Sorry, no technical issues, no mystery code snags, no one was twiddling knobs.

[Mark Gunter]

All this explains my girlfriend, Laurel's behavior. There've been times in the past when in the heat of passion, I'd say "I love you, Laurel" and I never understood before why she hit me and said, "Who the @#*& is Yanny!!??"

[Jess L.]

All this explains my girlfriend, Laurel's behavior. There've been times in the past when in the heat of passion, I'd say "I love you, Laurel" and I never understood before why she hit me and said, "Who the @#*& is Yanny!!??"

Lol!

[lex]

The first thing I thought after my wife and I heard different names was “I wonder what my mandolin sounds like to her?”

I always thought that diffferent folks listening to the same instrument would hear slightly different things but now I’m wondering just how wide that gap is. It makes me question the utility of frequently discussed topics concerning sound profiles of brands of instruments, pick material, or stings. Are Blue Chip picks preferred by people who hear Laurel? Do Yanni hearers like Eastman mandolins more/less than Kentuckys? Will D’Addario strings help a Laurel hearer pick up some of those Yanni overtones?

This seemingly inane meme is really making me wonder about how much we actually share listening to music or if it is a surprisingly individual experience?

[Mark Gunter]

I think it's safe to assume that the majority of people hear similarly, though probably with some mostly minor differences. If you want to know more or be a little more freaked out about it, check into the McGurk effect (mentioned in OP), example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0

Also, check into the tritone paradox, mentioned above.

If that's not enough, you can always study the classic schools of philosophy with a special emphasis on epistemology, alethiology and such. Bottom line, you'll never know whether anybody else in the world actually hears music the same way you do.

[bratsche]

This seemingly inane meme is really making me wonder about how much we actually share listening to music or if it is a surprisingly individual experience?

I'd say the latter, no doubt!

I happen to hear "yanny" & "laurel" equally. My DH, while not a musician, was easily predictable as a definite 100% "laurel person". I knew the high frequency of the "yanny" part was out of his range. He cannot hear the sounds of crickets at all, even if a huge, loud chorus of them is serenading in our yard ("what crickets?" he asks), while I hear them distinctly even from inside the double-thick hurricane-proof windows. The day I can no longer hear "yanny" (or crickets), I'll know it's time to clean the wax from my ears!

Differences like those have got to greatly affect the way individuals hear instruments and the overtones they produce. I began my music studies on violin and even played it professionally, but when I switched to viola, I never looked back. I tend to prefer hearing lower pitched instruments in part because my ears are hypersensitive to high frequencies, and the violin's upper register at close range got tiresome after a while.

bratsche

[jobella]

First I hear Laurel and then I hear Yanny and then I thought hmm... it sounds neither Laurel nor Yanny.

[Gutbucket]

I'm hearing both words at the same time. Is that even possible? No wonder I wreck so many jams.