Laurel or Yanny

[Fife]

Are you able to manipulate Brainstorm and Green Needle? That's the whole point of that one, and much more interesting, to me at least. That is, a software issue, not a function of the hardware.

[Kath]

I hear both, Fife, depending on which one I'm listening for.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I tried making it "Brain Storm" in my head, but there are too many syllables.

[Fife]

I hear both, Fife, depending on which one I'm listening for.

Yes, that's the idea.

[Kath]

I hear both, Fife, depending on which one I'm listening for.

Yes, that's the idea.

But I can't hear laurel no matter how much I try to get there.

[Haumana]

[Fife]

I hear both, Fife, depending on which one I'm listening for.

Yes, that's the idea.

But I can't hear laurel no matter how much I try to get there.

Interesting, eh?

For one recording, you can't overcome the bias of your skull hardware. For the other, your skull software can condition your experience based upon your preference, or at least your expectation. You've got a winning cerebral cortex!

I wonder how many other stimuli we experience that either aren't what we think they are; or are just made into being what we want them to be?

[Kath]

I wonder how many other stimuli we experience that either aren't what we think they are; or are just made into being what we want them to be?

A whole, whole, whole lot. I saw an interesting documentary on this a few years ago. Most of what we experience is simply pattern recognition, so we'll be absolutely convinced we saw one thing, when that's not at all what you saw.

I can catch myself doing that sometimes. I'll see something out of the corner of my eye, my brain blends 3-4 words together and creates a whole new word that isn't there.

[MilSpecs]

Ok, I’m going to see if I can get into the anechoic chamber today.

[BjornP]

In the tweet Penner linked to, I hear nothing but "Yanny". I'm guessing it's just a meme, where some people pretend to hear the clip is saying "Laurel". Or an experiment in getting people to claim: "Oh yeah, that word you *claim* it is, but don't actually *say*... yeah, we can totally hear that. Like making up a fake ghost story about a place, and still getting people to claim that: "yeah, we totally felt the spirit of Bob the Polo-playing kleptomaniac as we passed the sorta-fake-looking Indian graveyard".

Or, it's an ad for getting a better sound system or headphones.