Another internet “what color is the dress” type craze has emerged. A sound clip that simply says one word is causing major debates.
A high school student from Lawrenceville, Ga. came to notice this odd sound clip when checking a vocabulary word on volcabulary.com. The word was “laurel” – the word for a wreath worn on the head, “usually a symbol of victory.”
The student played the sound clip that is typically provided on such websites and was shocked. He was looking at “laurel,” but he was hearing “yanny.” He took the discussion to classmates, which sparked the first of debates. Then he took it to Reddit.
Instant viral sensation.
Check it out here: https://t.co/yrgu6mpztU #YannyOrLaurel https://t.co/KTI9CfWyty
— CBS New York (@CBSNewYork) May 16, 2018
Literally everything at my show just stopped to see if people hear Laurel or Yanny. I hear Laurel. https://t.co/efWRw1Gj0L
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) May 15, 2018
There’s a right side and a wrong side to #yannyorlaurel https://t.co/HIyFxmOzfo
— Kendall Trammell (@KendallTrammell) May 16, 2018
So, why does this happen? Why do people see different colors (i.e., “the dress) and hear different sounds?
Frequencies.
NPR spoke to Brad Story, a professor of speech, language and hearing sciences at the University of Arizona who said he noticed similar features in these words frequencies (above). Both words share a U-shaped pattern although they correspond to different sets of frequencies that the vocal tract produces.
In the interview he said, “So with a recording that’s somewhat ambiguous and low-quality, it’s not surprising that some people may flip those when they’re perceiving that word.” Interesting!
Don’t believe it? The New York Times created an interactive tool that allows you to shift frequencies are you’re listening to the word.
Are you wondering which I heard? I definitely heard laurel. In the office, only one of us heard yanny. What did you hear?
