KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A marketing firm in England recently set out to gather data that would help make better advertisements for drinks, like tea.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Twinings Infusions are all sourced from nature. From nettle and peppermint, to strawberry and mango.
MCEVERS: The marketing firm called "Condiment Junkie" specializes in sound design for ads like this one. They wanted to know, can people hear the difference between the pouring of a hot cup of tea and a cold glass of lemonade. So they did an experiment. They played sounds of hot and cold water being poured into glasses and asked people to guess - hot or cold? Here's one of the samples they used.
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MCEVERS: And here's another.
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MCEVERS: The results were kind of insane. Ninety-six percent of people can tell the difference between hot and cold pours just by the sound.
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MCEVERS: Can you hear the difference? If you can, go to our website NPR.org, and tell us which sound is hot and which sound is cold. You'll find recordings of the sounds, plus an online poll on our homepage. And tune in tomorrow to find out if you were right about this refreshing glass of ice water.
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MCEVERS: Oh, wait. Maybe it was this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER POURING)
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