Do you remember the first time you heard your voice? You will probably have been surprised to notice that the voice you heard in the audio was not the same one you heard day after day. In some cases we may think that it is a totally different voice and we wonder how it is possible. The most interesting thing is that most people hate their voice, they wonder how it is possible that there is such a big gap between what they hear every day and the recording.
In reality, the explanation is very simple: the sound that comes out of our mouth moves through the air towards our ears and reaches the external auditory canal, passing through the eardrum and reaching the cochlea. This process is called air conduction but because the mouth is so close to the ear, the process is almost instantaneous.
However, when we speak, in addition to expelling the sound out of the body, it also moves through our bone structure through the tissues of the head which, due to their characteristics, reinforce low-frequency vibrations. As a result, the voice takes on a deeper tone. As you can imagine, internal conduction prevails over air conduction, which is why we hear a kind of “echo” of our voice.
Obviously, microphones do not record this reverberation of the bones but the sound waves that are transmitted through the air, so the lower frequencies disappear and that is why our voice seems to be “uglier.”
This is the physical explanation why we don’t like our voice. However, there is also a psychological explanation. In fact, researchers at Albright College conducted a very interesting experiment: they asked 80 people to listen to different voices and rate them according to their degree of attractiveness. The curious thing was that the researchers included the voices of the people themselves in the recording but they did not recognize them and rated them as more attractive.
So why are we so critical of our voice when we recognize it?
Researchers think that the key lies in the difference between our true abilities and our perception of them. In practice, many people think they are more attractive and likable than they really are. It is a defense mechanism that helps us maintain good self-esteem. Obviously, when we confront reality, it turns out to be worse than we imagined because we had an unrealistic and too high expectation.
Source:
Hughes, SM & Harrison, MA (2013) I like my voice better: Self-enhancement bias in perceptions of voice attractiveness. Perception; 42(9): 941–949.
