Hardik Kothare, who works in the speech neuroscience lab at the University of California, San Francisco, was quick to weigh in with his assessment of the sound. To his ear, this was definitely a recording of the word “laurel.”

If you’re still on Team Yanny, listen to the original recording from Vocabulary.com, where it’s the pronunciation key for “laurel.” (Apologies, “yanny” fans.)

Kothare suggested that the recording was most likely “cleverly synthesized” to trick our brain’s powers of speech detection. He says there’s a simple, logical reason that some folks who listen to the viral recording hear “yanny” while others pick up “laurel.”

John Houde, who runs the speech neuroscience lab at UCSF where Kothare works, said that the either-or prompt of the recording is a classic example of what’s known as a forced-choice experiment – your brain is bound to pick out one word or the other.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/laur ... ?IR=T&r=US

If you’re still on Team Yanny, listen to the original recording from Vocabulary.com, where it’s the pronunciation key for “laurel.” (Apologies, “yanny” fans.)