Factors affecting the percept of Yanny v. Laurel (or mixed): Insights from a large-scale study on Swiss German listeners

Abstract

In May 2018, Yanny v. Laurel went viral: when listening to the same audio clip, some people claimed to hear only Yanny, others insisted it must be Laurel, and some had a mixed percept. Phoneticians have identified the acoustic features which caused this perceptual ambiguity, but we still know little about the factors affecting individuals’ perception of the illusion. We conducted a controlled study with 974 Swiss German listeners, balanced for age, gender, and regional origin. Overall, nearly two thirds heard Yanny, one quarter Laurel, and about 12% had a mixed percept. We found age, gender, and electronic device to play a significant role: younger, female, and laptop-using participants demonstrated higher proportions of Yanny responses. These findings contribute to the growing body of research on polyperceivable words.