Try to record your own voice, listen to it and then compare it to your everyday voice. How was that going? Do you guys like it? Umm, maybe not. We may feel that our sound recordings sound more squeaky, screeching, or even falsified than our everyday sound recordings. Why do we hate the sound of our own voice?
As our friends asked, is it true that our voice does sound like that in other people’s ears? Or have we been fooled by our voice recorder all this time?
As long as our sound recorders aren’t broken, that’s how our voices sound in our friends’ ears. To understand what really happened, let’s recall the science lesson.
The Journey fo The Sound
As we speak, our voices will propagate as waves in the air. In order to be recognized as our voice, the wave must travel a long way to our friend’s brain. First, the waves are captured by the earlobe and channeled through a long canal towards the eardrum.
This is where the waves are transformed into vibrations. Next, the vibration has to explore the three auditory bones. Once it arrives at the cochlea or snail house, the frequency or amount of vibration will be adjusted. Finally, the vibrations are brought to the brain for processing and recognition.
Our Brain is Magnificent
At the same time, different things happen to us. Apparently our brains are not just processing the vibrations of our sound that is propagating in the air. When we speak, our vocal cords produce vibrations that can propagate through the bones.
Once it reaches the skull, the acoustic chamber of our head cavity lowers the vibration frequency before it is sent to our inner auditory system.
As a result, our brain translates those vibrations into a more bass, round, and melodious sound. So, while our friends only hear from one sound source, we hear from a mix of two different sources.
So, if we’ve been feeling like we have the most beautiful voice in the world, maybe we’re just big-headed. In fact, our brains do not have a definite formula for determining what we like or don’t like.
According to Nobel Prize-winning mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russel, our perception or way of judging things is largely determined by our experience.
Generally, we prefer the familiar to the unfamiliar. It’s very natural. Even the divas may hate the recording of their own voices.
Anyway, there’s good news for all of us. For our family and friends, it is precisely the sound of the recording that we hate that is familiar to their ears. So, without the hassle of a vocals course to shape the voice, they will still love our voice as it is. So now is there a reason why do we hate the sound of our own voice?
