Do you think your voice sounds different when you hear a recording of it? If yes, you are not alone and there are millions of people who feel the same. It is a common thing to see people cringe hearing their own voice, calling it weird. It is so common that it has an actual word to describe it, that is ‘voice confrontation’.
Usually, the first response of a person hearing a voice recording is ‘do I really sound like this? or ‘is this really my voice’? while it is a casual thing and not even a medical issue, some people can become so upset that they refuse to hear themselves or allow anyone to record them in the first place.
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According to the health experts, these changes in our voice, making it weird are caused by various psychological and physiological changes. A sound coming from a recorded clip is differently transmitted to the human brain as the sound is transmitted when a person generating that sound speaks in front of him, live.
While hearing a recorded sound, the traveling of sound takes place through the air to ears, under a process called ‘air conduction’. After reaching the eardrum, it vibrates it and the ear bones then work on this signal and transmits it to the brain using auditory nerves.
On the other side, when you speak anything, the voice follows a different manner to make it to the eardrum. Only some part of it is transmitted using air as a medium but most of it is transmitted directly, using the skull bones. So hearing your voice sounds weird because it contains double conduction, i.e. air and skull bone-based which increases even the lowest frequencies of the voice.
That’s why, hearing your own voice sometimes sounds deeper and denser as compared to a recorded sound, which mostly sounds shrilling, high pitched, and cringy.
Another reason why recorded voice sounds weird and cringeworthy is because of the psychological factors. The difference in reality and your perception of this voice always lie. Every voice is unique and it represents a self-identify, so knowing that your ‘actual; voice sounds different, you feel like other people aren’t hearing the real you.
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Interestingly, other people, who hear your real voice and a recorded voice don’t feel much of a difference. Also, many of them agree that the recorded voice is not as worse as the person himself believes it to be. It’s just an option to hear your voice with more clarity and in a different way.
So don’t worry if you feel that your voice sounds terrible in an audio message or a recording. Everyone experiences the same and just because you find it weird doesn’t mean everyone else also hears it the same way. They are already used to hear you like this from day one, so it doesn’t make much of a difference. Health experts advise people to stop being so harsh on themselves and cope up with it, accepting it as a hearing difference.
