The Science Behind Laurel & Yanny Explained: It’s About A Person’s Age

2018-05-21 , 10:59 am

If you recall, a long time ago, we had the infamously family-tearing, bond-breaking, buddy-hating debate about whether the damn dress was blue black or white gold.

While honestly I couldn’t care less whether it was blue, white or indigo, people seemed to care a lot about it, to the point where such a matter popped up on the news rather than say, a fireman saving a child.

Humans.

But if you think humans learn from their mistakes, you’re wrong. It has happened yet again, although this time it’s more of an audio thing than visual. The topic at hand?

Yanny or Laurel?

Lest you’re unaware, an audio clip has been circulating on the net, and Netizens have been divided as to whether the voice in the clip is saying ‘Yanny’, or ‘Laurel’.

Personally, I’ve been hearing ‘Yanny’, but for some seriously odd reason people have been hearing ‘Laurel’. So bamboozled as I was (although I still don’t really care), I searched up the net. And after 2,999 days of endless investigating and searching, I’ve hit the answer (I think so).

Ladies and gentlemen, if I might present to you…

The science behind Yanny or Laurel, as explained by Asapscience (which kind of make sense.

Statistics

So first thing first, what are the statistics of the clip? That is to say; how many percent of the world’s population hears Yanny, and how many percent hears the other?

As it turns out, this is the result:

Yanny: 47%

Laurel: 53%

So if you’re like me who heard the word ‘Yanny’ despite never having met a ‘Yanny’ of any kind before, you will be glad to know that you’re in the minority.

But why exactly do people hear one or the other? The bros over at Asapscience find out more.

Priming

One factor is supposedly Priming.

See, you might have been led to believe that you’re hearing ‘Yanny’ or ‘Laurel’ because they gave you the options, when in actuality it might have been neither. In essence, what they are doing by giving you options, is essentially hoping that you will be primed to hear one of them.

Ellen Degeneres, who of course has to weigh in on this, showed us a good example. Listen to this and you’ll understand.

Speech recording

And it might have a little something to do with the propogation of sound too.

Here’s a visual depiction of the soundwaves of the original ‘Yanny/Laurel’ recording, courtesy of Brad Story, a professor of Speech, Language or Hearing.

And here’s a visual depiction of him saying ‘Laurel’.

As you can see, they share pretty similar frequency waves, which might explain your knack to hear ‘Laurel’ when it’s actually just your mum insulting you at the back.

Meanwhile, here’s a visual depiction of him saying ‘Yanny’.

Again, there’s a visible similarity too, although this time it’s much more subdued as compared to the ‘Laurel’ recording’.

Sound quality

Unbeknownst to many of us, sound quality actually plays a part too. So if you’re hearing it from your phone, it might sound like ‘Yanny’, while your laptop might play ‘Laurel’ like a drum band on ecstasy.

But what if you listen to the same device but you hear different things from the person next to you?

Well, this can be attributed to the age of your ears.

Here’s when the science comes into play, and the key reason why I hear Yanny while my 33-year-old colleague hear Laurel.

The Younger People Hear Yanny While the Older People Hear Laurel

Unbelievable as it sounds, ‘Yanny’ is believed to resonate at higher frequencies, which ‘older’ ears are less likely to catch.

So yeah, if you’re hearing ‘Laurel’, I regret to inform you that your ears might be past retirement age (jking).

But if you insist on hearing the audio version your ears persistently refuse to accept, the internet has come up with a solution. As long as you switch the pitch up and down, it should play the version you wish to hear.

Twitter user Steve Pomeroy did an experiment and it’ll confirm the theory.

Here’s the word with its pitch down by 30% (people who hear Laurel will now hear Yanny): https://xxv.so/0x6841c258

And here’s the word with its pitch up by 40% (people who hear Yanny will now heear Laurel): https://xxv.so/0x90b8eeee

In other words, if you’re old, you’ll most likely hear Laurel as you can’t hear things that are too high-pitch.

We put that theory to practise in the office and shockingly, that’s true: people who’re below 30 hear Yanny while people who’re above 30 hear Laurel.

So what’s the correct answer?

Well, according to AsapSCIENCE, it seems that the correct answer is…

Laurel.

The original recording is saying ‘Laurel’ with higher frequencies, creating ambiguity and the wars arguably more heated than ‘Infinity War’.

But if you got it wrong, don’t worry.

At the very least, you probably got younger ears. Which is a good thing in any aspect. #yannysunite

#nowyouknowIamyoung

Now you’ve become smarter. Remember to check back tomorrow in the Goody Feed app for a new Fact of the Day!