I started by ripping the audio from the original video<\/a> from reddit. I dropped it into Ableton so we could get a better look at the audio\u2019s spectrogram. In case you\u2019re not familiar with audio spectra, we\u2019re looking at a visual representation of all the audible frequencies of a given audio signal.<\/p>\n \u201c As you can see, the spectrogram of this audio is quite noisy. Amplitudes of the signal\u2019s individual frequency bands are more randomly distributed throughout the spectrum – clear evidence of an informal phone or laptop mic recording. There are a few important things to note here, but the most obvious abnormality is that the signal drops off sharply around 6 kHz. We\u2019ll get into that later, but first let\u2019s talk about noise.<\/p>\n When we listen to noisy audio, our brains work harder to identify patterns and interpret what we\u2019re hearing. Since the \u201cee\u201d vowel sound we hear in \u201cYanny\u201d lives in a higher frequency range, and the \u201co\u201d and \u201coo\u201d sounds of \u201cLaurel\u201d live in a lower range, we\u2019re more likely to hear one or the other if we’re predisposed to hear a higher or lower frequency range. Which frequency you are predisposed to hear depends on a few factors, including your listening environment, age, and lifestyle.<\/p>\n As we age, our stereocilia (the tiny hairs in our ears whose responses to changes in air pressure allow our brains to process these changes as sound) begin to lose their potency. Older people have lost more cilia in the course of their lifetimes than younger people, so it stands to reason that they have less ability to hear higher frequencies, but it is also very possible to destroy these cilia, even at a young age. According to Ethan Siegel at It Starts With A Bang<\/em>,<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe most sensitive cilia are the ones closest to the outside: only a tiny vibration is needed to set them in motion. These are also the most easily destroyed. So when you do things to damage your hearing like go to rock concerts without earplugs, listen to your headphones or stereos too loudly, fire a gun without protective gear, or have your \u201cfriend\u201d scream in your ear, these sensitive cilia get destroyed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Young people are therefore more likely to hear \u201cYanny,\u201d while older people and frequent irresponsible enjoyers of loud music might gravitate towards \u201cLaurel.\u201d The miracles of modern audio processing tools, however, allow us to correct for this. Let\u2019s take a listen to the clip with a low pass filter at 1 kHz:<\/p>\n![\"laurel-yanny-01\"](\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/LY_1.png\")
<\/p>\nYanny<\/del>\u201d \u201cLaurel<\/del>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n