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Featured video: The neuroscience behind "Yanny" vs. "Laurel"

MIT grad students explain why some people hear "Yanny" and others hear "Laurel" in the audio clip that's taken the world by storm.
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"Yanny" or "Laurel?" Discussion around this auditory version of "The Dress" has divided the internet this week.

In this video, brain and cognitive science PhD students Dana Boebinger and Kevin Sitek, both members of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, unpack the science — and settle the debate. The upshot? Our brain is faced with a myriad of sensory cues that it must process and make sense of simultaneously. Hearing is no exception, and two brains can sometimes ‘translate’ soundwaves in very different ways.

Submitted by: McGovern Institute | Video by: Julie Pryor | 2 min, 37 sec

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CommonHealth (WBUR)

WBUR’s Carey Goldberg recommends a video with neuroscientists at the McGovern Institute “for a quick, light and smart explanation” of the ‘Yanny vs. Laurel’ debate. “The same acoustic information is hitting everyone’s ears,” says graduate student Kevin Sitek. “But the brain is then going to interpret that differently, based on experience.”

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