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A DEBATE similar to the ‘Yanny or Laurel’ debacle has erupted online thanks to a viral TikTok video.
The sound clip is dividing the internet because some people hear the word ‘brainstorm’ while other people hear the phrase ‘green needle’.
The TikTok video puzzles viewers because it says «You will only hear the word you’re reading».
It then shows ‘brainstorm’ and ‘green needle’ in text on the screen.
Whatever text you read when you hear the sound is what you end up hearing.
This shows how your brain can be tricked to interpret sounds differently.
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The original Yanny vs Laurel debate was very similar to this and took over the internet back in 2018.
There is actually a scientific reason why people perceive sounds differently.
Even when the two words are completely different.
It’s said to be due to the frequency of the sound you’re hearing and how it can effect the mechanics of your ears.
Lars Riecke, an assistant professor of audition and cognitive neuroscience at Maastricht University, explained the phenomenon to The Verge two years ago when the debate first began.
Riecke told the publication: «Most sounds – including L and Y, which are among the ones at issue here – are made up of several frequencies at once … frequencies of the Y might have been made artificially higher, and the frequencies that make the L sound might have been dropped.”
For those in doubt of the answer as to whether the clip says Yanny or Laurel, University of Arizona’s Brad Story said the original recording was actually Laurel.
He said to National Geographic: “The reason it can be confused is that there is a family of frequencies produced by the shape of our throat and mouth.»
Lowering the frequency can increase your chances of hearing Laurel, while slightly high ones will increase your chance of hearing Yanny.
The Guardian previously reported Professor David Alais as saying: “They can be seen in two ways, and often the mind flips back and forth between the two interpretations.
«This happens because the brain can’t decide on a definitive interpretation.
“If there is little ambiguity, the brain locks on to a single perceptual interpretation.
«Here, the Yanny/Laurel sound is meant to be ambiguous because each sound has a similar timing and energy content – so in principle it’s confusable.
“All of this goes to highlight just how much the brain is an active interpreter of sensory input, and thus that the external world is less objective than we like to believe.”
TIKTOK: A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE WORLD’S MOST DOWNLOADED APP
TikTok lets users create and share short videos with music and camera effects.
It is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, founded by the entrepreneur Zhang Yiming.
The $75 billion conglomerate acquired the Musical.ly app in 2017 and merged it with TikTok, bringing millions of new users.
It is the world’s most downloaded iPhone app – with nearly 800 million downloads across the globe, according to data from mobile research firm Sensor Tower.
Facebook has taken notice of TikTok’s rising popularity, and launched a competitor app called Lasso in November last year.
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In other news, an Amazon Alexa ‘snooping-blocker’ that jams the microphone of your Echo smart speaker has been developed.
Stunning winning snaps from the annual iPhone Photo Awards have been revealed.
Elon Musk’s Neuralink implants will stream music straight into your brain.
What are your thoughts on this brainteaser? Let us know in the comments…
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