After This Audio Illusion, You'll Never Trust Your Ears Again

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It might be a little too early in the morning to have your mind blown, but this audio illusion is worth your time because it demonstrates your brain's uncanny ability to use new information to help process something that is otherwise incomprehensible.

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In the experiment a spoken sentence is turned into complete nonsense using audio filters—at least as far as your brain is concerned the first time you hear it. But after hearing the original unprocessed version, suddenly your brain is able to make sense of what before sounded like gibberish.

It's a similar phenomenon to optical illusions where your eyes only see a specific image until other details are revealed, like the well-known old/young woman trick. But your brain applies the same processing to what you hear; you just may not have realized it until now. [Soundcloud via Slorum]

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Photo by Shutter Stock/Voronin76