Why Don't We Like Like Sound Of Our Voice?

The sound of one's voice surprises and can even be unpleasant - If you are curious, here we explain it to you!

Why don't we like the sound of our voice?

Listening to a recording of our voice often arouses a feeling of embarrassment or dislike that is difficult to explain. Moreover, we believed that what we hear has nothing to do with the actual sound of our voice.

Social networks and, in general, the new forms of communication of the current era have popularized recordings. It has meant that we often start to hear our voice from the receiver's side.

But what is the reason for this sensation, and why is the voice heard so differently in a recording? The answers come in two ways: physical and psychological. In this article, you have the keys to understand how they work and interact with each other, so don't miss it. But if you need to prepare this topic at college, you should dig deeper into the topic or buy a custom essay to save your time.

How do we listen to our voice?

The first step is to understand how the brain processes the sound of our voice. The feeling of unreality that appears when listening to a recording in which we come out speaking is, in fact, natural: it is not the same sound that the brain has cataloged as our own. It happens because when we say, the sound waves arrive through two channels:

External way: we hear ourselves like any other sound coming from the environment.
Internal way: simultaneously, those sound waves coming from the vocal cords reach the auditory system by reverberation through the skull.

In other words, we also hear ourselves "inside." These sound waves have a lower frequency, so we listen to them in softer tones.

The cortical auditory processing areas are in charge of processing and cataloging this sound. The brain makes an "average" between the two pathways, so the sound it identifies as its voice will be slightly lower than what would be heard from the outside.

Relationship between sound and self-concept

The other explanation is psychological. At the level of thought, one's voice is one of the many facets that make up the self-concept. That is, self-identity is not only based on concepts and opinions one has about oneself but has a sensory component, from the image one sees in the mirror to the sound of one's voice.

When the mind encounters something that is not in line with one's identity, it will automatically activate the mechanisms that safeguard the self-concept. Therefore, the first reaction to a voice that does not sound like our own is to think, "that's not how I sound."

To this is added another factor, the social element: the fact that other people confirm that this is how one's voice sounds from the outside adds to the feeling of strangeness. Some people even dislike their voices because of this dissonance.

Psychological awareness about our internal phenomenon and developing skills bay-by-day is necessary to achieve success in the modern world. So, maybe you'll find these sources useful to you:

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Since mobile devices and audio chats have come, hearing one's voice has become a more frequent and everyday experience. As you might expect, it has influenced the collective perception of one's voice.

To give you an idea of how this perception has developed, here is a short timeline:

In a 1967 study, different subjects were presented with stimuli to test the extent to which they recognized themselves in them. The results showed that only 38% of the volunteers were able to recognize their voices immediately.

Later, in 2010, another study comparing visual and auditory self-recognition speed revealed that this percentage of people who recognized their voice was 89-93%.

A study conducted in 2013 found that if the subject is not warned that he will hear his voice, he evaluated it more favorably.

Knowing our voice and working on it transcends beyond the opinion we may have about it. In areas such as music therapy, dramaturgy both the internal and external voice is important. It impacts the person's concept of identity.