This month a video with the caption “What do you hear?! Yanny or Laurel” went viral. People all over the world were arguing whether they heard Yanny or Laurel. Although you might argue you heard Yanny and not Laurel or Laurel and not Yanny, or maybe even both, there is science behind it. Wether you hear “Yanny” or “Laurel” depends on whether you’re attending to lower or higher frequencies of sound. Delete the higher frequencies and “Laurel” becomes more pronounced. Do the same with the lower frequencies and “Yanny” emerges. Hearing one or the other in any given moment depends on many factors: the quality of the speakers you’re using, your hearing sensitivities, whether you have hearing loss, the audio-processing regions of your brain, and your expectations. Younger people hear higher frequencies better while older people tend to hear more of low frequencies.
If for some reason you’ve been under a rock here is the video.
What do you hear?! Yanny or Laurel pic.twitter.com/jvHhCbMc8I
— Cloe Feldman (@CloeCouture) May 15, 2018
Read more in depth about Yanny/Laurel: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/16/17360332/yanny-laurel-audio-science-explained-nature-of-reality
https://www.vox.com/2018/5/16/17358774/yanny-laurel-explained
This relates to engineering because there is science behind Yanny/Laurel and science is engineering.
