Yanny. Full stop. I can’t even process how laurel is possible from the sound I hear.
Very interesting article. I heard “Yanni” in all versions I could find by Googling, so it was interesting to hear how “Laurel” could be generated by the clip.
I’m actually surprised that I’m hearing Yanni since I’m a 66-year-old male. So I still should be able to hear bird calls well. 
Interesting. Yeah, male, 42,so no surprise I’m not hearing in the 20khz range.
I heard it as “Yanny” on my Dell laptop’s teensy speakers. However, when I plugged in my vintage Pickering over-the-ear headphones, I clearly heard “Laurel.”
They’re both there. The “Laurel” is a deep, adult male voice; “Yanny” is higher, nasal, and chipmunk-ish.
Interesting. I played it on my iPhone; when I put my phone up to my ear, I clearly hear it as “Laurel”, but when I hold it at arm’s length it sounds something like “Yeewee”. Try it yourselves.
(Male, 43, who sometimes thinks he should have his hearing checked).
This is what I heard as well. Don’t know if it was the accent or the speaker intentionally running lettters together, but I could definitely hear a ‘y’ sound at the start.
Both. I hear a higher-timbred voice saying ‘Yanny’ synchronously with a deeper voice saying ‘Laurel’.
All I hear is Yarry.
Exactly. I hear both.
I’m hearing impaired and do not have my hearing aid in right now. I’ll just agree with whatever closed captioning says.
Our daughter played this for us last night. She hears “Laurel”, my wife Pepper Mill hears “Yanny”, and I hear “Yarry”, as you do. The two of us can’t hear a “l” sound at all.
Same. Clearly both.
Another vote for “yammy” and no idea how anyone could hear “Laurel”. Of course, I’ll come back to this time and time again, just as I did with the BLUE & BLACK dress and may eventually hear it. I love this kind of stuff (even if I don’t understand it).
First time I played it it started off ambiguous, then my brain resolved it into Laurel. Now I can’t hear any ambiguity at all, regardless of if it’s sped up, slowed down or on crappy speakers.
I hear, “Mutton Vindaloo”
Is this the reason for the ambiguity? Can this be an auditory version of the “Hybrid Image” situation?
In case you haven’t encountered it, a “hybrid image” is one in which two vaguely similar images are overlaid atop one another, but you only have the high spatial frequency components for one image and only the low frequency spatial components for the other. The result is an image that, up close, looks like the high spatial frequency component part, but far away looks like the low frequencu component parts.
One famous example used simultaneous images of Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein:
The examples you can find on the internet don’t look particularly impressive, but I saw a display of these at the MIT museum that was pretty startling. (but even THEIR internet version is underwhelming – http://cvcl.mit.edu/hybrid_gallery/gallery.html )
It would be an easy thing to separate out high and low frequency audio components from two different words and broadcast them simultaneously, especially if you’re using artificial voice. In any event, even using real human voices it’d sound artificial. This would also explain why for many people changing the volume changes the perceived word – it’s the auditory equivalent of standing closer to or farther from the hybrid image.
When I played the clip on this computer, it was “yammy.” When I played it on my laptop, it was “laurel” for me, but my husband heard “yanny.” When he played it on his laptop, he heard “laurel,” with a side of “yanny.” I just heard “laurel.”
Unambiguously Laurel here.
After some tinkering: On this computer, simply adjusting the volume makes it switch. At 100%, it’s “laurel.” At 90% or thereabouts, I can hear both. Anything under about 80% and it’s “yammy.”
I shared this with my office. Academically I get the concept but it’s trippy to listen to the same thing at the same time as someone else and know we hear two totally different things.