Personally, I’m not a fan of either, so it’s always been a little interesting to me to run into people that are more averse to hearing a recording of their voice.
(Also is there a dedicated term for audio-only voice recordings? 🤨)
Your voice sounds different because you hear your own voice through your skull which adds bass. Recorded voices sound higher pitched.
It sounds so very nasal… Like I am deliberately routing all voice data through 3 sinuses.
People see themselves in the mirror pretty often, so they have a general idea of how they appear to other people. But they don’t hear their own voice regularly unless they record themselves and listen to it, so it’s more of a surprise when they do hear their own voice.
I think you have this flipped, though. It’s more like we hear ourselves all the time, but we don’t sound at all to ourselves the way we actually sound. We don’t have a sort of internal picture of ourselves to create dissonance with our reflection or photographs in the same way we do with our voices. It’s that dissonance that makes us distrust or dislike hearing ourselves as we actually sound because that isn’t the voice we identify with internally.
voice dysphoria
I suspect it’s because we see accurate representations of ourselves in every mirror. With voice though what we hear normally is distorted by the resonence of our jawbone, so hearing the version everyone else does when it’s played back from a recording is alien and weird.
The way your voice sounds inside your head is impacted by the way that your voice vibrates and reverberates inside your skull, producing a deeper and more resonant sound. Everyone tends to think recordings of their voice sound tinny because it is not in the same deep register they are used to.
Similarly, people tend to only be used to seeing their likeness in the mirror, meaning that other images of them which are not mirrored can seem as unfamiliar as a whole other person.
On a side note, imagine being the first person to ever hear a recording of their own voice. Would they have known that how we hear ourselves isn’t what others hear, or would they chalk it up to a flaw in the nascent technology?
You get used to seeing yourself in a mirror.
Most people don’t listen to their voice nearly as often as they look in a mirror.
I was interviewed this morning on my local stations morning radio show and I refuse to listen to it lol.
You get used to seeing yourself in a mirror.
You do?? 😦
Like, actually, legitimately?
Except when on shrooms, yeah. Do you not have mirrors in every bathroom?
Looking at my own face makes me uncomfortable, so I typically don’t look imto mirrors straight-on.
Might benefit from some therapy pal
That’s not your face.
Well whoever it is, they better pitch in for bills.
They already do. They just use your bank account.
I have central auditory processing disorder, capd. Seeing a visual is instantaneous, clear, easy. People speaking is torturous, brain can’t process, requires lot of work, confusion, translating. For me, visuals are external, but even external sounds become internal, physical. Activation of the limbic system, anxiety, fear, can lead to hearing voices. Prefrontal cortex, I think, is where brain stops internalizing sound as stress, fear. Why some people with adhd who hear voices take a small, mild dose of Ritalin at night. Ritalin means less limbic, less fear.
Not an answer to your question, but I think different areas of the brain process sound, visuals. Different mechanisms. I’d be interested to know if someone could shed light on this.
I’ve got a very mild visual processing disorder. Sometimes I’ll look at a picture of something and just be like “wtf is that” for a solid minute or two before I see the obvious object/scene that it is.
It’s easier to change your hairstyle or makeup than it is your voice. Most people also hear their voice about an octave lower in their head. It resonates differently internally than it does out in the air. A recording of your voice is like looking in a mirror and seeing something different than what you see most of the time.
I think I sound reasonable talking. On recordings I sound like the gayest, campest homo in the fucking universe.
Even though I’m gay it’s still cringe af.
It’s fucking hilarious to think I went years denying being gay but when I listen to my voice it’s like “WTF - it’s SO fuckign obvious!”
Dude same but with my Mexican accent. I know I have a tad of an accent but it’s not bad in my head, the moment I hear my voice in a recording it’s like I’m listening to fucking speedy Gonzales or whatever his cousin slow rat was.
Slowpoke Rodriguez!
Most people also hear their voice about an octave lower in their head.
Is this true? It’s the other way around for me. Well, I don’t know if it’s an octave, but my voice sounds significantly deeper in recordings than I hear it as I’m speaking.
Do you have a low voice? I’m a bass and I’m the same way. My voice in recordings always sounds lower (and less expressive!) than it is in my head.
Yeah, it’s pretty deep as other people hear it. I hate how I sound in recordings.
My wife tells me, “You sound good.”
I told her, “Sure, but if I sounded to everyone else the way I sound in my head, I would be famous.” 😁
I’d guess lack of familiarity. Your voice sounds different than what you hear in your head so a recording can seem very strange, whereas seeing a picture or reflection is much more frequent for many people.
