Columbai, SC (WLTX) - Some say it's "laurel; others say it's "yanny." Either way, it's driving all of us crazy.
A tweet from Cloe Feldman on Monday has caused a social media firestorm.
Quite honestly, it's strangely similar to the black and blue or gold and white dress debate that took over our news feeds a few years back.
All of us are arguing with each other about what's right or wrong. How can we look at the same picture, or listen to the same exact thing, and think it's something different from what our friends think?
Amit Almor is a psychology professor at the University of South Carolina. He says a person's experiences can help determine what they see or hear.
"We perceive information and we need to make sense out of it. It can also be the psychological properties of our hearing system. The shape of everybody's ears is different. There are minute differences in how each of us perceive different sounds," explained Almor.
The audio quality isn't great, and Almor believes it can impact if you think it's "yanny" or "laurel." Although the words may sound completely different to you, the acoustics of the word are quite the same. Depending on the language you speak or are used to hearing, the words can sound similar.
He says some people on the internet can also manipulate the sound of it.
"If you take that ambiguous word then kind of filter out the high frequencies, then you hear a very clear "laurel." If you filter out the low frequencies, then you hear "yanny," said Almor.
While there's not a clear answer of what the word is in the recording, it all depends how you look at — or hear it.