Bad news, your voice really does sound like that.
We’ve all shuddered away from the sound of our own voice. Covering our ears and generally crumpling when we’re captured on video, on voice notes, or in that intolerable situation of a phonecall time delay.
It’s a universally uncomfortable moment being confronted with the voice of a tweenager and being told it’s our own. Where did all the gravitas go? Is all the authority of tone really just a figment of our own delusion?
Short answer? Yes.
But why? Well, you hear your voice in two different ways.
The first is through vibrating sound waves hitting your ear drum, this is the way other people hear your voice.
The second way is through vibrations inside your skull set off by your vocal chords. Those vibrations travel up through your skull, along your jawbone and also set the ear drum vibrating, but this time as they travel through the bone they spread out and lower in pitch, giving you a false sense of bass.
So when when you hear a recording of your voice, it sounds distinctly higher. This is the way the world hears you.
Brit Lab has a snazzy explanation in the video below;
Clip via; Brit Lab
We’ll just have to get used to it.
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