Why don’t we like our voice in recordings?

Do you sometimes just wonder how did your voice change like that on recording and make you wanna cover your ears. Don’t worry you are not alone.

Firstly the way sound is transmitted to your brain when you speak compared to when you hear a recording is different. When you speak, the sound will reach your inner ear differently. Some of it will be through air conduction, which is when sound travels through the air then travels into your ears. Even so, most of the sound is internally carried straight through the bones of your skull. When we hear our voice, there exists both internal and external conduction. The reason for the boost of the lower frequency is the internal bone conduction. This is the reason why we tend to perceive our voice as deep when we speak.

When listening to our voice in recordings, the sound will firstly travel through the air then into your ears (air conduction). The energy from the sound will cause vibrations in the eardrum and then into the smaller ear bones. Afterward, the sound vibrations are subsequently transmitted by these bones to the cochlea, which activates the neuron axons that convey the auditory information to the brain.

As a result, when we talk, we often consider our voice to be deeper and richer. In comparison, the recorded voice might sound thinner and higher-pitched, which many people find cringe and not like. The term given for not liking your voice is called voice confrontation.

The other reason why we might not like our voice in recordings is the fact that we sound higher-pitched than we believe we should make us grimace because it doesn't match our internal expectations; our voice plays a huge role in defining our identity, and I guess no one wants to realize that they're not really who they think they are (Jaekl, 2018).

A 2013 study asked participants to judge the attractiveness of several recorded speech samples. Their voice was secretly added and mixed in with these recordings, participants awarded their voice much better scores when they didn't recognize it as their own. Additionally, there has also been previous research that suggests that voice confrontation results not just from a difference in predicted frequency, but also from a startling revelation that comes when you realize everything your voice represents.

A neuroscientist at McGill University, Mat Pell, has said that “when we hear our separate voice that is disconnected from the rest of our behavior, we may go through the instinctive process of assessing our voice in the manner we frequently do with other people's voices... I believe we then compare our perceptions of our voice to how other individuals should perceive us socially, which causes many individuals to be disturbed or unsatisfied with how they sound since the impressions produced do not correspond with the social attributes they seek to present (Jaekl, 2018).”

To conclude, when we hear our recorded voices, we have no control over our speaking and our voices just run wild. We tend to find it very different as it feels like a very new voice to us which exposes our reality. As voice is an important part of your identity, finding something different can be quite shocking to some people. As there will be a realization that other people have been hearing another voice to what you expected them to hear. Also, we are just simply used to hearing the voice we hear when we speak.

By Pearl Ghevariya [12E]

Bibliography

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The Conversation. 2021. Why do we hate the sound of our own voices?. [online] Available at: <https://theconversation.com/why-do-we-hate-the-sound-of-our-own-voices-158376> [Accessed 19 January 2022].

Jarrett, C., n.d. Why do we hate the sound of our own voices?. [online] BBC Science Focus Magazine. Available at: <https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/why-do-we-hate-the-sound-of-our-own-voices/> [Accessed 19 January 2022].

Samuelson, K., 2017. Why Do I Hate the Sound of My Own Voice?. [online] Time. Available at: <https://time.com/4820247/voice-vocal-cords/> [Accessed 19 January 2022].

Psycnet.apa.org. n.d. APA PsycNet. [online] Available at: <https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1968-03920-001> [Accessed 19 January 2022].