Laurel or Yanny?

[DonaldM]

But what is so interesting (to me anyways), is that different people hear one or the other, even listening on the same playback system at the same time. Thursday morning, 7 of us were at my friends house. He played the audio for us. 4 of us clearly heard "Laurel", 3 heard only "Yanny". I did the same thing on Thursday night with a group of 12 people. 2 of us heard "Laurel", clearly and distinctly. The other 10 all heard "Yanny". This was off my iPhone speaker. When we said we heard "Laurel", some of the group looked at us like "what's wrong with you?" It IS a very interesting phenomenon.



I suspect that we'll see a handful of peer reviewed research papers coming out on this in various academic and science journals. And then there will be a book...followed by a blockbuster film!

[amagras]

Originally Posted by DonaldM

But what is so interesting (to me anyways), is that different people hear one or the other, even listening on the same playback system at the same time. Thursday morning, 7 of us were at my friends house. He played the audio for us. 4 of us clearly heard "Laurel", 3 heard only "Yanny". I did the same thing on Thursday night with a group of 12 people. 2 of us heard "Laurel", clearly and distinctly. The other 10 all heard "Yanny". This was off my iPhone speaker. When we said we heard "Laurel", some of the group looked at us like "what's wrong with you?" It IS a very interesting phenomenon.



I suspect that we'll see a handful of peer reviewed research papers coming out on this in various academic and science journals. And then there will be a book...followed by a blockbuster film!

I met a folk once that couldn't hear low, mid and high-mid frequencies at all, he was legally deaf, still he wanted to be a musician so I offered to create a monitoring signal chain using multiband compression and limiting for him to be able to hear his guitar with consistency.

I suspect not everybody hears the different regions of the frequency spectrum with the same intensity either by nature or because of an accident, I for example have a slight loss on the right ear around the same frequency where the snare drum is more harsh and another in the left ear in the same area where the guitar tipically is, this is due to many years playing without hearing protections in the same part of the stage with the amp on one side and the drummer on the other. Luckily is not much and I only know because I took a hearing test, now I wouldn't left my house without my earplugs.

[DonaldM]

Another factor is aging. As people get older they can develop a certain amount of sensori-neural hearing loss. Normally its the higher frequencies that begin to decay first. Sibilant sounds, for example, are harder to hear because they tend to revolve around frequencies above 6-8k.



But, even that doesn't explain how people listening to it one time and hearing Laurel, and then later doing it again from the same source through the same system hearing Yanny. Clearly there's a number of factors involved. Some may fall into the psychoacoustic category!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by amagras

I met a folk once that couldn't hear low, mid and high-mid frequencies at all, he was legally deaf, still he wanted to be a musician so I offered to create a monitoring signal chain using multiband compression and limiting for him to be able to hear his guitar with consistency.

I suspect not everybody hears the different regions of the frequency spectrum with the same intensity either by nature or because of an accident, I for example have a slight loss on the right ear around the same frequency where the snare drum is more harsh and another in the left ear in the same area where the guitar tipically is, this is due to many years playing without hearing protections in the same part of the stage with the amp on one side and the drummer on the other. Luckily is not much and I only know because I took a hearing test, now I wouldn't left my house without my earplugs.

Have basically the same issue with my hearing. Back in the day no one worried about hearing protection - witness the problems that people like Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton are having these last few years. One of my prominent problems hearing-wise is tinnitus. Sometimes it is multiple frequencies and happens without much if any external stimulus.

Like you I don't go to concerts without my hearing protection (electronic muffs with mics that duck the sound level when loud noises happen). Made the stupid mistake once of going to a Celtic Woman concert with their classic lineup in a hockey rink that doubles as our local concert venue. Floor seats and it was LOUD Before intermission I got up to go to the gents and caught a look at the soundboard and the desk jockey had all levels in the red. That was the last time I ever left the muffs at home. Now I use them for everything around the house when working with power tools.