The Speech-to-Song Illusion

[Still Waters]

The great Laurel-or-Yanny debate of 2018 was so fun because it shined a light on the often-illusory nature of auditory perception. What you hear may not be the same as what somebody else hears. Or, perhaps what you hear could change over time. What surely was "Yanny" to some people at first sounded a lot more like "Laurel" upon their 27th listening.

New research appearing today in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE explores these ideas further. A team from the University of Kansas has investigated the "Speech-to-Song Illusion," where a spoken phrase is repeated and begins to sound as if it were being sung.

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-laurel-yanny-repetitions.html?

[Susanc241]

Well, the repeated version never broke into song for me!

[dlh]

I agree with Susanc241.  I just hear the same four words repeated.  No sense of a tune at all.

[bigjim36]

Same here, no difference at all.

[StarMountainKid]

If the speaker would have spoken the words flowing together it would have sounded more like a song.

[fred_mc]

I agree with the previous comments. I don't hear any song either, just 4 words repeated over and over again.

[pallidin]

Yeah, same here. No difference to me.

[pallidin]

Perhaps they should have tried these words instead...

"Yanni, Laurel, Laurel, Yanni..."

[kapow53]

Not at all

[carolinacottontail]

I didn't hear the syllables more than the words, after repeating. I'm not convinced that there is any kind of phenomenon here!

[Vox]

You guys are obviously immune to musical genius that is Daft Punk...

https://youtu.be/D8K90hX4PrE