Many of us will enjoy sharpening our brains by practicing optical illusions, but few realise that our ears can be every bit as deceptive as our eyes.
A baffling audio illusion is now leaving people scratching their heads, unable to figure out why exactly they're hearing something completely different from the person sitting next to them.
The illusion in question shows a toy of the character Brainstorm from the TV show Ben 10, which says 'Brainstorm' out loud when pressed. Some people don't hear the word 'Brainstorm' at all, however, and instead hear the words 'green needle'.
When it comes to this puzzle, it's all about which one you're actually thinking of when you listen. If you read 'Brainstorm', that's what you'll hear, and vice versa with 'green needle'.
You can have a try for yourself, changing what you hear depending on what you're focusing on, despite hearing the exact same sound every single time.
The same audio illusion concept has been widely shared on social media, including by TikTok content creator and audio expert Jarred Jermaine, who goes by the username @jarredjermaine.
Jarred asked his followers: "Watch the video again but try closing your eyes and see what you hear."
One amazed person commented: "I hear green needle first and then brainstorm the rest of the time."
Another wrote: "Both if you focus on the words and not on what you hear."
A third insisted: "It literally plays two audios."
Explaining how such audio hallucinations work, Dr Kevin Franck, director of audiology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, told TIME that what a person hears "all comes down to the brain".
Dr Franck added: "The fact that brains go in one way and some brains go in the other means that we're all just wired a bit differently based on our experiences. The brain is built to turn messy signals into meaning. It just will not give you ambiguity."
Do you have a puzzle to share? Email us at julia.banim@reachplc.com
