- I hear that like only hot people
and cool people hear yanny so.
- [Woman] Shut up.
- If you think it's yanny,
I wish to disconnect with you on a personal level.
(dramatic music)
(robot saying yanny or laurel)
- So people have been freaking out
about this yanny versus laurel debate.
- There is no way that this could be yanny.
- This is not saying laurel, this is only saying yanny.
- It just says laurel a bunch of times.
- It's just, it's bananas, but I only hear yanny.
- And we're seeing this story everywhere.
The New York Times wrote this thing up.
Even musician Yanni commented on this.
Some people have really been enjoying this debate
while others are completely over it, including myself so
I wanna figure it out once and for all,
is it yanny, is it laurel
and how is this phenomenon even happening?
So to get more of a back story on this,
I decided that I'm just gonna reach out to the source
and contact the original Redditor
that posted the audio clip.
So I reached out to this guy named Roland
and he actually was pretty quick to respond.
He said that he came across the words on a website
when he working on a project a long time ago.
I remember my sister saying,
'Why do you keep playing yanny.'
And then my sister's friend
who was doing homework with my sister said,
'That definitely says laurel.'
I was very confused after that.
I don't remember the name of the website unfortunately.
After doing a little bit of digging,
I was able to find the website,
he actually found this audio clip on vocabulary.com,
(robot saying yanny or laurel)
which is incredible because it solves the problem
of what word is being said.
We can definitely say the word is laurel,
but we can't argue that it sounds like yanny.
Sound is how we perceive things
and I wanna figure out why that is
so to get to the bottom of this
I think I need the help of an expert.
There are a few theories that I had heard
that I'd love to hear your thoughts on.
Like one said the age of your ears
will change how you hear it,
is there any truth to that?
Another theory that I had heard was
this says more about the speakers
you're listening to the audio from
than your ears or your perception.
If you were to play with the frequency
and move it up or down, you would,
like the differences would become more transparent
to the audience, is that true?
And then if we moved it up we would then see
or hear the laurel
- [Mario] It's likely to be laurel, would be my guess, yes.
- So I decided to put this theory to the test.
I put the audio through one of my editing programs
and started playing with the pitch.
(robot saying yanny or laurel)
Now I was already hearing laurel,
but as I started going lower and lower in pitch,
- [Robot] Yanny.
- [Host] I started to hear yanny clearer and clearer.
- [Robot] Yanny.
- But maybe you were already hearing yanny
so when you go in the opposite direction,
I'm sure you'll agree...
- [Robot] Laurel.
- [Host] You start hearing...
- [Robot] Laurel.
- [Host] Laurel.
- [Robot] Laurel.
- So now what does this mean?
Well it means we can stop talking about it.
(dramatic orchestral music)