![]() This makes this sound fairly easy to understand regardless of hearing capacities. Nasal symptoms are made up of mostly low frequency/pitch energy – predominately under 500 Hz. The /n/ sound in the word “Yanny” Is a nasal sound. Still, it may be surmised that some of that energy may not be accessible to someone with a high frequency hearing loss, which can impact their abilities to clearly understand. The harmonics (F2/F3) range from 2200 Hz to 3000 Hz, which is on the higher scale, although not at the highest end of the frequency range for speech sounds. Glides are made up of predominately higher pitched energy. Slow transitions from one harmonic to the next can make it easy for the brain to process this sound. These sounds take on many characteristics of vowels and tend to be easier to hear in general. The /j/ (‘y’) sound in the word “Yanny” is considered a glide. j/ (‘y’ sound) + /a/ + /n/ + /i/ (“ee” sound) = YannyĮvery speech sound is made up of a fundamental pitch – or frequency – and subsequent ”harmonics.” The fundamental pitch is called “Fo”, the first harmonic is “F1” and the second harmonic is “F2.” Incidentally, Fo is related to the larynx, F1 is related to the size/shape of the pharynx and F2 is related to the size/shape of the mouth. Let’s start by understanding the acoustic structure of the sounds that make up both of these words: The factors that determine this are current hearing levels, processing skills and sound experience. The theory surmises that the brain attends to that with which it is most comfortable. Following this theory, people with high frequency reductions in their hearing can’t easily attend to the higher pitched signal in the word “Yanny.” Others have stated the the energy between the words are similar, it just matters what the brain attends to. Our ears help us hear Our brains help us discriminate, process and understand.įollowing some of the thoughts and theories of many sound experts during the week, a conclusion was made that the word “Laurel” contains lower frequency/pitch sounds and the word “Yanny” contained higher frequency/pitch sounds. More importantly – why do people hear this sound clip differently? For the entirety of the week, it’s been hard to avoid the question:
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