全世界都为这段音频吵翻了
Three years ago, a dress caused arguments across the internet over the question of whether it was black and blue or gold and white. And now, its audio equivAlent has arrived.
三年前，一条裙子的颜色到底是黑蓝还是白金在网上引发了争论。而如今，音频版的类似之争来了。On May 13, an 18-year-old US student posted an audio clip on US social networking platform Twitter in which a man is saying a word. The word he says is “Laurel”. But strangely, as many as 47 percent of Twitter users said they heard the word “Yanny”, while 53 percent voted for “Laurel”.
5月13日，美国一名18岁的学生在美国社交网络平台推特上发布了一段音频，音频中，一名男子说了一个词。该男子所说的词是“Laurel”。但奇怪的是，有47%的推特用户表示他们听见了“Yanny”，而53%的人认为是“Laurel”。So, what caused the confusion?
所以，是什么引起了人们的困惑呢？
Lars Riecke, an audio expert at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, explained to tech site The Verge: “The secret lies in the level of frequency.”
荷兰马斯特里赫特大学音频专家拉尔斯·里克在接受科技网站The Verge采访时解释称：“秘密就在于音频高度上。”When we receive acoustic information from the outside world, the frequency of the audio affects how it sounds. So, a higher frequency makes people hear “Yanny”, while a lower one sounds like “Laurel”.
当我们从外界获取声音信息时，音频影响着我们所听见的声音。因此，高音频让人们听见的是“Yanny”，而低音频听起来像是“Laurel”。As amazing as it is, frequency could be influenced by our age. As we become middle aged, our hearing ability begins to weaken, making certain high frequencies harder to hear, meaning older people are more likely to hear “Laurel”. On the other hand, children’s ears are more sensitive to high-frequency sounds, so many of them will hear “Yanny”, the Daily Mail reported.
同样神奇的是，我们所能听见的音频受到年龄的影响。当我们步入中年，听力开始下降，很难听见一些高音频的声音，这就意味着年纪大的人更有可能听见“Laurel”。另一方面，儿童的耳朵对高音频的声音更加敏感，所以他们中有不少人会听见“Yanny”,《每日邮报》报道称。And the audio system playing the sound could also lead to some variations. For example, phones or speakers without good low-frequency playback capabilities will make us hear “Yanny”, and loudspeakers with good low-frequency capabilities will convey “Laurel”.
而播放声音的音响系统也会导致不同的结果。比如，低音频回放功能欠佳的电话听筒和扬声器让我们听到的是“Yanny”，而低音频播放功能较好的喇叭则传出的是“Laurel”。
And it’s not just our ears or speakers that determine what we hear – our brains also play a role. According to Bharath Chandrasekaran, a researcher from the US, the brain always uses surrounding cues to help it make the right decision when we face ambiguities.
除了耳朵和扬声器之外，我们的大脑也会对所听见的声音产生影响。美国研究人员巴拉斯·钱德拉赛德兰认为，当我们感到模棱两可时，大脑会利用周遭的暗示来帮助我们做出正确的决定。For example, if a girl unclearly introduced herself as “Laura”, our brain might automatically match this unclear sound with “Laurel”. However, if we heard the word “Yanny” mentioned around the same time, our brain might give an unconscious preference for this name instead.
比如，如果一个女孩含糊地介绍自己叫“Laura”，我们的大脑或许会自动将这个不清楚的声音听成“Laurel”。然而，如果当时我们听到有人提起“Yanny”这个词，我们的大脑或许就会下意识地倾向于听见“Yanny”这个名字。“All of this goes to highlight just how much the brain is an active interpreter of sensory input, and that the outside world is less objective than we like to believe,” psychologist David Alais from the University of Sydney told the Guardian.
“所有的这一切都表明，大脑在解读感官输入时，表现得相当活跃，而外界其实没有我们所认为的那么客观，”悉尼大学心理学家大卫·阿莱斯在接受《卫报》采访时表示。
