Laurel vs Yanny

[FLATROCK HILL]

NMC here.
I know the McGurk effect has been discussed here at the Cafe but I don't remember reading anything about this one.
Unlike the McGurk thing, this strange phenomenon requires no visuals: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/...ained-science/

What do you hear?

[George R. Lane]

I hear "Boy is this dumb".

[FLATROCK HILL]

I hear "Boy is this dumb".

Looks like there's an explanation for that in the article:

"Part of the answer is the difference between listening and hearing," says audiologist Douglas Beck, executive director of academic sciences at hearing aid manufacturer Oticon Inc. and senior editor of academic sciences at the audiology trade magazine Hearing Review. "Most people think of hearing as occurring in the ear, but hearing and listening actually occur in the brain."

[MikeZito]

I listened four times -

The first time I heard: 'Laurel'
The second time I heard: 'Hardy'
The third time I heard: 'Well, that's another fine mess you've gotten me in to.'
The fourth time I head a high pitched crying sound . . . .

[blaise.douros]

I LOVE it when internet trends give me a chance to share obscure knowledge! *puts on square cap and robe*
The voice is saying "Laurel," but there are a lot of acoustic and psychoacoustic factors that will predispose certain people to hear "Yanney" vs "Laurel."
The "Yanney" sound is created by a higher pitch series that we normally don't notice when listening to voices. These are called formants--they're a series of overtones specific to human speech. They're normally masked by the fundamental, which we perceive as the main pitch and the primary vowel sound.
The overtone/formant series changes the way we perceive the fundamental tone: lots of overtones, and it sounds buzzy and complex; not a lot of overtones, and it sounds muffled.
Certain voices emphasize certain overtones and formants more than others; male opera singers, for example, do this on purpose to achieve more projection by emphasizing the "squillo" (squeal) sound.
What's interesting about the Laurel/Yanney thing is that it highlights certain differences in how we perceive the overtones versus the fundamental. There are a couple of factors, but here are the ones I think are most in play.
First, you're more likely to hear "Yanney" if the fundamental pitch is masked. A lot of things can be responsible for this; first, most people are hearing it on smartphone speakers, whcih are very small, and small speakers don’t do a good job of reproducing low pitches. So the fundamental lowest tone of the voice is being limited, which allows the overtone series to become more prominently heard.
Second, some peoples’ brains (mostly women, but not exclusively) listen more closely to higher pitches—it has nothing to do with better hearing, it’s purely related to perception. So even when the full spectrum of sound is present, those people are predisposed to hearing the higher-pitched overtones.
Finally, the voice in the recording emphasizes these formants fairly strongly in the back of the throat--whether it's a trick of the anatomy of the person on whom the robot voice recording is based, I don't know--but the formant overtone comes through strongly in this sound even in ideal listening conditions.
The upshot of this is that you can reproduce this effect yourself! Close your fist, and put your mouth at the little circle made by your thumb and forefinger. It may help to lift your pinky. Say the word “Laurel” while speaking into your fist (men may have better luck speaking in a higher voice), and you will hear the fundamental of your voice filtered out by the soft tissue of your hand, while the formant, which sounds like “Yanney,” will come through more clearly. You may have come across this same phenomenon if, like me, you were in junior high during the 90's, when people said “girl” into their hand, but you heard a high-pitched “doy” sound.

Notice any similarities between “Laurel” and “girl,” and the resulting sounds' ("Yanney" and "doy") similarities?

[minuteman]

I have to say that I got caught up into this today. I downloaded an audio clip of it and using Audacity, changed the frequency until I heard a difference. It was remarkable at what point it changed for me vs the wife. For me, it was 4100hz, add or remove 20hz and it was night and day. The wife said it started to blend at 9600hz and wasn't clear either way for around 500hz up or down. By the time she heard a change it was annoyingly high to me.

[Roger Moss]

I listened to it ten times and all I heard was "laurel". I guess that's why I'm not any fun at parties...

[Steve VandeWater]

My wife played it for me on her phone this morning and it was very obviously Yanni. I couldn't understand how anyone could hear anything else. However, I heard it played on NPR in my truck coming home and it was obviously Laurel. Difference in speakers I guess, as blaise.douros said above.

[Bob Clark]

What do you hear?

All I heard was myself yawning. Oh well.

[Bill Kammerzell]

I listened four times -

The first time I heard: 'Laurel'
The second time I heard: 'Hardy'
The third time I heard: 'Well, that's another fine mess you've gotten me in to.'
The fourth time I head a high pitched crying sound . . . .

Nothing like Stan and Ollie playing a little "Kneesy, Earsy, Nosey."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiFEFL6ThRI

[Astro]

In such a divisive world, its somehow reassuring to learn there can be a physiologic basis for our disagreements.

On the other hand, I think anyone who hears yanni is just wrong and should leave the country.

[HonketyHank]

I think something like this is happening to me now, with my new hearing aids, on one of my mandolins. I used to really like that one, too.

[Ivan Kelsall]

This even cropped up on UK TV last night !!. The 2 words are so different if you say them yourself,that i couldn't believe that anybody could mistake one for the other. I hear 'Yanny' every time without fail,
Ivan

[mandolin tony]

doctor Moe, doctor Larry, doctor Curly. were are you ?, the world needs you. its gone mad.

[MikeZito]

Nothing like Stan and Ollie playing a little "Kneesy, Earsy, Nosey."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiFEFL6ThRI

The whole thing is laughable:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BAEJyuReWQ

[Bill Kammerzell]

Doctor Howard, Doctor Fine, Doctor Howard!

[Gary Leonard]

Did anyone click on the Clip 1 and Clip 2 links in the middle of the OP's original article?

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/...d-science-spd/

That was cool, as well as a bit freaky. What was equally cool was going back to the page and clicking on Clip 1 a day later. I could hear the phrase, but it wasn't as clear. Clicking on the second clip, then playing the first clip made it more clear. It's like the brain needed a little nudge to remember the sounds and fill in the gaps. Perhaps this can explain the results of double blind tests comparing expensive instruments to less expensive. This is simply the way we hear, and comparing one sound to another is more subjective than objective, with so many variables affecting how we listen.

[sblock]

Hey, I just love that tune by Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum, "The Oak and the Yanny." How about you?

[MikeZito]

What really scares me is that somebody probably got some sort of grant, that is equal to 5 years of my salary, to some come up with this Laural/Yanny stuff . . . .

[vetus scotia]

You will be happy to hear that it is not the fruit of a research grant: http://time.com/5279727/yanny-laurel-original-clip/

And the guy who first came up with this certainly did not get rich from it: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heraclitus/

[sblock]

What really scares me is that somebody probably got some sort of grant, that is equal to 5 years of my salary, to some come up with this Laural/Yanny stuff . . . .

No Mike, that did not happen in this case. But I hope you and my fellow MC musicians don't begrudge the funding spent on basic research, in general. Historically, basic research has paid out huge dividends for our society, and it has propelled the U.S. to worldwide leadership in technology and biomedicine (and as a military power, as well). You never know in advance what newfound understanding in science might lead to, so be careful before you rush to condemn it as frivolous. In fact, the ways that we perceive (or mis-percieve) spoken speech have a lot to tell us about computer-based speech recognition, about communication bandwidth, and future designs of things like human-machine interfaces. In my opinion, it's all good.

For the first time in the post-WWII era, federal funding of basic research has now fallen below 50% of all research spending, and science is under attack from some quarters in government (see here). In all, federal expenses for R&D constitute less than 0.4% of the U.S. GDP. That's not a whole lot.

[Drew Egerton]

I LOVE it when internet trends give me a chance to share obscure knowledge! *puts on square cap and robe*
The voice is saying "Laurel," but there are a lot of acoustic and psychoacoustic factors that will predispose certain people to hear "Yanney" vs "Laurel."
The "Yanney" sound is created by a higher pitch series that we normally don't notice when listening to voices. These are called formants--they're a series of overtones specific to human speech. They're normally masked by the fundamental, which we perceive as the main pitch and the primary vowel sound.
The overtone/formant series changes the way we perceive the fundamental tone: lots of overtones, and it sounds buzzy and complex; not a lot of overtones, and it sounds muffled.
Certain voices emphasize certain overtones and formants more than others; male opera singers, for example, do this on purpose to achieve more projection by emphasizing the "squillo" (squeal) sound.
What's interesting about the Laurel/Yanney thing is that it highlights certain differences in how we perceive the overtones versus the fundamental. There are a couple of factors, but here are the ones I think are most in play.
First, you're more likely to hear "Yanney" if the fundamental pitch is masked. A lot of things can be responsible for this; first, most people are hearing it on smartphone speakers, whcih are very small, and small speakers don’t do a good job of reproducing low pitches. So the fundamental lowest tone of the voice is being limited, which allows the overtone series to become more prominently heard.
Second, some peoples’ brains (mostly women, but not exclusively) listen more closely to higher pitches—it has nothing to do with better hearing, it’s purely related to perception. So even when the full spectrum of sound is present, those people are predisposed to hearing the higher-pitched overtones.
Finally, the voice in the recording emphasizes these formants fairly strongly in the back of the throat--whether it's a trick of the anatomy of the person on whom the robot voice recording is based, I don't know--but the formant overtone comes through strongly in this sound even in ideal listening conditions.
The upshot of this is that you can reproduce this effect yourself! Close your fist, and put your mouth at the little circle made by your thumb and forefinger. It may help to lift your pinky. Say the word “Laurel” while speaking into your fist (men may have better luck speaking in a higher voice), and you will hear the fundamental of your voice filtered out by the soft tissue of your hand, while the formant, which sounds like “Yanney,” will come through more clearly. You may have come across this same phenomenon if, like me, you were in junior high during the 90's, when people said “girl” into their hand, but you heard a high-pitched “doy” sound.

Notice any similarities between “Laurel” and “girl,” and the resulting sounds' ("Yanney" and "doy") similarities?

Next time my playing sucks, I will tell the audience they are just not hearing it correctly and go into this entire speech

[jefflester]

This even cropped up on UK TV last night !!. The 2 words are so different if you say them yourself,that i couldn't believe that anybody could mistake one for the other. I hear 'Yanny' every time without fail,
Ivan

Same here. I don't hear anything that sounds like an "L" sound at all. My girlfriend sitting right next to me on the couch (we were watching local TV news) said she heard Laurel and questioned how I could not.

[MikeZito]

As in all science, there IS a correct answer to this debate - however, at this point, we just don't know what it is.

[Bertram Henze]

Yeah Ree, Yeah Ree
That's what I hear. Am I alone in a phonematic universe?