Viral: Can you hear this silent gif? Scientist says you might have 'visual ear'

In 2015, a dressgate incident had put everyone into a dilemma upon its colour confusion as some could see the dress as white- golden and some saw it as blue-black.

A similar incident happened a couple of months ago while people were confused about the colour of a pair of shoes whether its grey-turquoise or pink-white.

This time, it is not about colour confusion. But it is all about a gif image and its 'sound'.

Also read: Pink-white or blue-grey? Internet divided over the colour of the shoe [PHOTO]

According to a BBC report, some people can hear a thudding sound in a silent gif of skipping pylons.

The gif was originally created by a Twitter user named Happy Toast (@IamHappyToast) as a part of a photoshop challenge on the boards of b3ta.com. The gif image has gone viral since then.

The silent gif divided the internet while some claiming that they can hear a thudding sound when the pylon hits the ground but some cannot hear anything apparently.

On December 3, Dr Lisa DeBruine from the Institute of Neuroscience & Psychology at the University of Glasgow took to Twitter to post the image again asking if they could hear any sound. It has received more than 1300 comments with 21,000 retweets.

On the same thread, she further created a poll asking, "What do you experience when you watch this gif?" along with four options.

The poll has received more than 290,000 responses from the Twitterati, with 68% saying they could hear a thudding sound while 20% replied they could not hear anything.

One person pointed out: "Could it be that the actual skipping speed is about the same as resting heart rate, and what people are actually hearing is the blood pumping through their ears in time with the skipping?"

Chris Fassnidge, a doctoral candidate in psychology at London's City University also offered an explanation, saying: "Unlikely as common resting heart rate is quite different to the timing of this video. Also unlikely to sync so rapidly and in so many people."

Dr DeBruine told the BBC: "I don't know why some people hear it very clearly, others only feel it, and others perceive nothing at all. Some deaf and hard of hearing people have reported all three perceptions, as have people with aphantasia," a lack of visual imagery.

"I thought some of the vision scientists I follow would be able to explain it right away, but it seems like there are several plausible explanations and no clear consensus."

Fassnidge had an interaction with BBC 5 radio show host Phil Williams as he explained, "I suspect the noisy gif phenomenon is closely related to what we call the Visually-Evoked Auditory Response, or vEAR for short."

"This is the ability of some people to hear moving objects even though they don't make a sound, which may be a subtle form of synaesthesia - the triggering of one sense by another," he added.

"We are constantly surrounded by movements that make a sound, whether they are footsteps as people walk, lip movements while they talk, a ball bouncing in the playground, or the crash as we drop a glass. There is some evidence to suggest that synaesthetic pairings are, to some extent, learnt during infancy."