Can you trust what we hear?

It is a curious thing. Mostly I think it is a matter of context. It may be impossible to judge colours properly unless we have some reference object under the same kind of lighting for comparison. Similarly with audio, a single word heard in isolation may depend on whether the person comes say from Hampshire or Yorkshire, or from which country of the world. Unless one hears a complete sentence or a longer speech, one may not have any way to get a grasp of the context. The audio example was also confounded apparently by being recorded via a microphone while being played back on a tinny loudspeaker.   The original sound (see attached zip file) was rather less ambiguous.

 
  laurel - Dictionary Definition Vocabulary.com.mp3.zip (Size: 16.79 KB / Downloads: 2)