This is apparently an optical illusion for your ears and it's all over the internet and everyone is talking about it. Click on this and tell us what word you hear. https://twitter.com/CloeCouture/status/996218489831473152/video/1 I hear "Laurel" repeated over and over, and can't imagine how anyone could hear it as 'Yanni'. Do any of you hear the voice saying "yanni"? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yanny-vs-laurel-debate-sparks-internet-controversy/ CBS News talked to somebody who says the difference in how this is heard is due to how well a person hears high frequencies. Those who have better high frequency hearing are supposedly more apt to hear the voice saying 'yanni'. (If it's a frequency thing, it seems to me that a lot of it might be due to the frequency response of the speakers you are listening to it through.) The White House is divided: https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/997255568782852096
Not exactly I heard this yesterday on YouTube after clicking on a video titled something like "Yanni vs Laurel - explained!" and thinking that it was a comparison between Yanni, the musician, and some other musician named Laurel. (Derp!) All I heard was Yanni, Yanni, Yanni and I had no idea what in the world was going on, until the video creator's voice kicked in an explained the whole phenomenon. With some concentration, I was then able to *switch* what I was hearing and could make out Laurel, Laurel, Laurel instead, but it seems like my natural default is to hear Yanni. It reminds me of the image of the spinning dancer where you at first either only see her going clockwise or only counter clockwise, but with concentration, you can make yourself see it either way you choose. Just a minute ago, I saw her going counterclockwise, then I was able to switch to clockwise and am currently unable to make her go back to counterclockwise. I find it addictive and rather frustrating.
I first saw this a couple of hours ago when I first saw your post. She was going clockwise then. Now when I look at it on my laptop, she's going counter-clockwise. I can't make it go back to clockwise just by thinking about it. I'm guessing some Degreeinfo conspiracy has changed the video in the interim (probably that no-good Kizmet), it's just not right.
Practice makes perfect. I don't know what drew me to try, but I got the hang of switching the directions pretty well in about five minutes. Later, I looked back here and was amused to find that the larger image Maniac posted was rotating clockwise, while the smaller copy (in Heirophant's quote) appeared to be rotating in the opposite direction. It was quite novel, but I was rewarded with a headache after a couple of minutes. At my age, I'm darn lucky I can see anything, let alone make it change directions!
What does it mean if it stops spinning altogether? Brain tumor? Aliens? Aliens with brain tumors? My brain tumor is an alien?
FOR SURE when I click on the little vote thing, I hear Yanni - but, when I went to dictionarycom and typed in Laurel then hit the audio icon, it for sure sounds exactly like Laurel. So, I'm not sure what's what.
I don't think that this really came from Dictionary.com. It appears to me to have been created intentionally. I'm told (dunno if it's true) that the laurel/yanni recording is recordings of the same (synthesized) voice saying both words, both being played back at the same time. One ('yanni') is spoken in higher tones than the other. My spin on that is that our auditory apparatus is evolved to extract information from noise. We attend to the former and tune out the latter. In this case, the noise accompanying the message is another message. So it's kind of arbitrary which message is chosen as the signal as opposed to the noise, seemingly a matter of how well the listener hears high frequencies. I always hear 'laurel', but I have some higher-frequency hearing loss (associated with too many rock concerts back in the day). Kind of an auditory duck-rabbit.
