This “Audio Illusion” Will Blow Your Mind

Call it spacing out, a senior moment, or a brain fart — no matter how smart we humans think we are, our brains have a strange way of letting us down when we need them most. But, we should probably cut them some slack. After all, they're a lot like the rest of us; most of the time, all they need is a little nudge in the right direction.

Case in point: this so-called "audio illusion" from an episode of The Pulse on WHYY. Listeners are first presented with what we're told is an actual English sentence that's been "transformed by a computer to sound like gibberish." (In fact, it sounds more like what would happen if R2D2 took ecstasy — but we'll take the lady at her word.)

Then, something kind of crazy happens. After we're given the original sentence, the host plays the gibberish one more time. And, voilà — it's English! According to the host, the brain's sudden ability to speak droid can be attributed to the way it interprets data. Perhaps unsurprisingly, every piece of information that comes in — whether auditory, visual, or otherwise — is processed in the context of what came before. See? You're brain's actually a pretty smart cookie.

And, just in case you're in the mood for some more illusions, click over for a bit of pointless, mesmerizing visual madness. (Gizmodo)