OK, so given that the audio is not meant to be perfect, the options are really Yanny and Laurel. The 'other' option was really meant to be a catch-all to be explained in a post.
i clearly hear something quite different to either option. appologies if it sounds a wee thread jacky... not intended to be.
This link, hyper from the op, clarifies: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/16/upshot/audio-clip-yanny-laurel-debate.html On the slider scale, with the center tick at "0", I hear "laurel" securely at that center tick. if moving from "0 laurel" to the right I start to hear "yanni" between 3 and 4 ticks, securely at 4 ticks. If starting from the very right at "5 tick yanni" I start to hear "laurel" at about 2 moving left (so 3 ticks from 5). That difference - almost two ticks on their scale - appears to be expectation bias.
Fascinating. I get the same thing, but a mirror image. I hear Yanni at the centre, and continue to hear Yanni all the way till the second last tick to the left. Only on the very last tick do I hear Laurel. But then, when moving the slider back from left to centre, I hear Laurel all the way to just short of the centre tick.
During the transition, I can hear both words - a lower pitch voice saying "laurel", a higher pitch voice saying "yammy". At some point the two voices are approximately equal in volume and presence. When spotting the slider, rather than sliding it, and alternating between ticks 0 and 5R (clear laurel, clear yammy) for initial spot before compared spot, this equality point seems consistent regardless of expectation created by last heard: about 2.5 ticks to the right of 0, or almost exactly half way on their slide however they scaled it. Btw: hearing "yammy", not ""Yanni", throughout.
I have almost the same experience, but I notice that the transition back from Laurel to Yanni is inconsistent. When I repeat the slider thing, sometimes I still get Yanni a long way to the left of centre, but sometimes Yanni doesn't kick back in until the slider is near the centre again.
I got a one-location transition point, consistent from trial to trial regardless of start, by "spotting", rather than sliding, the slider - homing in from both directions in a series of back and forth skips. But my left slide transition and right slide transition were each self-consistent, although different. Anyone else hear "yammy" ?
And there was me thinking it was a white dress. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The one time I've heard this it was "laurel", but I'll give it another go (if I remember) once I'm home from work (no audio at work).