Date of Award

Spring 2020

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Psychology; College of Arts & Sciences

First Advisor

Katherine Moore

Abstract

Yanny vs. laurel took the nation by storm in May 2018 due to its divisive nature of a simple sound. This audio clip was recorded by a high school student listening to a human voice on a dictionary website saying the word laurel, but many people could only hear yanny..The present study was conducted to investigate if one’s executive function capacity, specifically their task switching ability, would explain why people interpret an ambiguous stimulus, such as yanny vs. laurel, the way that they do. while also looking at other optical and auditory illusions of the same nature. To do this, we tested participants (n=50) task switching abilities through a computerized task, and then completed a survey about two visual and two auditory illusions. In this, the results should show that there is a correlation between ability to switch perceptions of the given illusions and the task switching ability, as well as a correlation between their ability to switch perceptions of the auditory illusions and the visual illusions. If the results are as predicted, it can be concluded that one’s executive function capacity, specifically task switching, does play a part in our ability to switch perceptions of an ambiguous stimulus or not.

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Is It Yanny or Laurel: How Executive Function Capacity Impacts the Perception of an Ambiguous Stimulus

Yanny vs. laurel took the nation by storm in May 2018 due to its divisive nature of a simple sound. This audio clip was recorded by a high school student listening to a human voice on a dictionary website saying the word laurel, but many people could only hear yanny..The present study was conducted to investigate if one’s executive function capacity, specifically their task switching ability, would explain why people interpret an ambiguous stimulus, such as yanny vs. laurel, the way that they do. while also looking at other optical and auditory illusions of the same nature. To do this, we tested participants (n=50) task switching abilities through a computerized task, and then completed a survey about two visual and two auditory illusions. In this, the results should show that there is a correlation between ability to switch perceptions of the given illusions and the task switching ability, as well as a correlation between their ability to switch perceptions of the auditory illusions and the visual illusions. If the results are as predicted, it can be concluded that one’s executive function capacity, specifically task switching, does play a part in our ability to switch perceptions of an ambiguous stimulus or not.