(upbeat music)
- Hi, I'm Cristen Conger,
and welcome to Brain Stuff.
Have you ever heard a
recording of yourself
played back to you and thought ugh,
why do I sound like that?
Usually our voices sound deeper,
but when played back the way
everyone else hears them,
they're higher and tinnier.
So, why does it sound so different,
and why do we hate it so much?
Well, the sound of your voice reaches
your inner ear in two different ways.
The vocal folds in your throat vibrate
creating sound waves that
travel through the air,
but those sound vibrations also conduct
through your body,
particularly through your skull and bones.
Our skulls lower the frequency
of these ladder vibrations
as they bounce around
inside our throat, mouth,
and neck before reaching the ear's cochlea
through the fleshy tissue in our heads.
The surrounding bones
spread out the vibrations,
lower their pitch, and
enhance the lower frequency
vibrations so your voice
sounds fuller and deeper.
When we hear our voice
played back on a recording,
we don't get it filtered
through flesh and bone.
What we're hearing then
is only the air conducted
sound of our voice as waves of pressure.
In both cases, the cochlea
converts these vibrations
into impulses that are sent to the brain,
but with the elimination of
the bone conducted sound,
we end up hearing our own voice the way
everybody else hears it.
Most of us have had this
experience and hate it.
We're used to that combination
of the air conducted
and bone conducted sounds of our voice.
It's what we've lived with all our lives.
So, of course, it's
unsettling to hear something
so different than what we're used to.
But remember, this is how
your friends and family
have been hearing you your
whole life, it's normal.
So, relax and rest easy
knowing that everyone cringes
at the sound of their own voice,
except maybe Morgan Freeman
whose voice is perfect.
So, what do you think you sound like?
Both before and after
recording yourself, of course.
Let us know in the comments below,
and while you're at it,
it wouldn't hurt to click
that subscribe button.
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with Brain Stuff.
