Andy Forgrave asked me about the Laurel or Yanny debate. I had been seeing the rumbles of it on Twitter.
Quite honestly, it had just taken a moment of time away from my other tasks to investigate. That was about it.
But, he sent me this article to make it appear to be more interesting. So, I guess the least that I could do is take a second listen to it.
I clearly heard “Laurel”. It didn’t come as a surprise to me. After all, I’m married to one.
Now, just to go full circle on it, I asked my Laurel to close her eyes and listen to my computer for a second. I got one of those looks that only a husband gets that says “you’re a knuckhead”.
I heard the word “Yanny”. What’s the big deal?
So, I sent her the link to the article that Andy had sent me and she wanted to know how I got her name on the New York Times. Now, I can perform minor miracles but this is beyond me. She read the article and while I tried to give my take on it, I continued to get the same look when the “dress” was an Internet thing.
“Don’t people have better things to do with their lives?”
Probably, but it is intriguing. I did what any geeky person would do and brought the sound file into Audacity and messed around with it. It was actually kind of fun to do that. I have all these tools installed but, unless I have a purpose, I don’t us them for a purpose. I think I may have found new options for editing sound that I hadn’t used before.
And, it turns out that the New York Times had created an easier way to play around with a sound file here.
By this time, YouTube was all over it.
It’s not the first time our ears have been tested. Check this out. I like how you can trick yourself to hear one or the other by setting your mind so that you expect one and then actually trick it.
So, in reply to this post. What did you hear? “Laurel” or “Yanny”?
Or, “I have a life and didn’t try”.
doug --- off the record 
Can I answer D? I didn’t try because I was reading a really good book that captured my attention instead. 🙂 You have me curious to try though.
Aviva
LikeLike
I had been noticing references to it on social media, but I didn’t dig into — I figured it was about characters on a TV show I didn’t watch haha. Then I skimmed an article in a local newspaper that it was like “the dress” debate, and I figured I had already spent enough time on that! 🙂 But then our oldest was over on the weekend and mentioned it and nudged our family to have a listen from her phone. I heard Yanny. My husband and 2 daughters heard Laurel. She also played the other one you linked. I heard green needle, they all heard brainstorm. Very strange.
I can’t read the Atlantic article you linked at the moment — my free reading is maxed out it tells me. I just listened to this video:
I think it is just further proof that I have better hearing than my husband and my children 😀
LikeLike
I heard Yanny. I didn’t really try it until it had become a distraction in class though. The students were all over it.
LikeLike