Yanny or Laurel Explained: Why Is This Audio Puzzle Breaking The Internet?

If you have checked your social media platform in the past one day, you might have come across the “Yanny or Laurel” debate that has split the internet into two.

In case you haven’t, here is the audio file that has sparked an argument between netizens and people are freaking out:

What do you hear?! Yanny or Laurel pic.twitter.com/jvHhCbMc8I

— Cloe Feldman (@CloeCouture) May 15, 2018

 

How did the Yanny vs. Laurel debate begin?

On Tuesday, a social media influencer and designer, Cloe Feldman, posted this video on Twitter which soon sparked off a debate among Twitterati. This video has now gone viral and currently doing rounds on other social networking platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

What’s the truth behind Yanny and Laurel?

While Team Yanny and Team Laurel continue to prove each other wrong, sound experts have found the correct answer. It turns out both sides are correct.

Acoustic analysis of the audio reveals that the trick lies in sound frequency. There are actually two separate voices in the recording: one sounds like “Laurel” at a lower frequency whereas the other sounds like “Yanny” at higher frequencies.

So if you are playing the audio at a high volume, you are most likely to hear “Laurel” and a lower volume will make it sound like “Yanny.” It also depends a lot on the audio system playing the sound.

Experts say the mechanics of our ears also has a lot to do with the final result and depends on what you are expecting to hear. I, personally, can hear both if I focus enough on the version I want to hear.

This won’t be the first time when a mind-boggler like this has broken the internet. Many of us would remember the infamous Gold/Blue Dress debate of 2015. Nothing else has gathered so much of disagreement since then!

So what do you hear? Shout out in the comment section!

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