The Yanny-Laurel meme and other audio illusions actually say quite a bit about the perception of music and speech and the organization of the human brain. Diana Deutsch, the world's foremost expert on these fascinating "perceptual anomalies," makes compelling arguments for a variety of issues, such as that music and speech originated from a protolanguage; that our past experience unconsciously affects what we hear; that music theory can now be put to experimental
tests. She has shown that absolute pitch, once thought to be completely hereditary and extremely rare, is not at all unusual among musicians in China, where a tone language is spoken. Anyone who has been mesmerized by Necker cubes and Escher prints will find this book engrossing and entertaining-it is a
mind-expanding, ear-opening tour de force."
Diana Deutsch is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego. A leading researcher on the psychology of music, she is noted for her discovery of musical illusions, and her work on perfect pitch. Deutsch is editor of the book The Psychology of Music, and creator of the compact discs Musical Illusions and Paradoxes, and Phantom Words and Other Curiosities. Among many other honors, she was awarded the
Gold Medal Award by the Audio Engineering Society.