eli5 Why do people’s voices sound different to them than they do to everyone else?
In: 1049
When you hear yourself speak, you’re hearing it filtered through your own body, and that modifies the sound characteristics of your voice.
Your voice box and other people’s ears are really only connected through the air. So they only hear your “air voice”.
But your voice box and your ears are also connected through your body. So not only do you hear your “air voice”, you also hear your “bone and flesh voice”.
Because some of their own voice reaches their own ears through the tissues inside their head. This adds timbre that’s not audible to others.
The sound that everyone else hears is of your voices vibrations in the air whereas you hear a mixture of it vibrating through the air and through your own body as the sound is produced internally and therefore vibrates at a lower pitch.
This always bothered me with the people/comedians (like Frank Caliendo) who do great impersonations… they sound just like the person to us, but to them impersonator does it actually sound off?
When you speak, you hear your voice that resonates within your own body/skull, so you hear it ‘from the inside’, so to speak. So you usually hear it with a deeper tone than what it sounds for other people.
For others, your voice is heard ‘from the outside’, so with less resonance, hence why it sounds ‘higher pitched’.
As others have said, what you hear as tour voice is mostly not coming out of your mouth, but the vibration of your face parts. I believe most of it is actually made by your jawbone vibrating against your inner ear.
I think the main reason is the proximity of your ears to your mouth.
Hearing yourself from inside your head like so many people here have said is a factor but I don’t think it is the primary one.
Try this; Hold a couple of folders or books against your head in front of your ears (to block the path of sound from your mouth to your ears) – then speak.
You will hear your voice after it has been reflected off a wall or something. In doing this you can see that the biggest modifier to how you sound is that your ears are really close to your mouth.
There is a thing called Eustachian tube.
It’s basically a tunnel from your mouth to your eardrums.
When we speak, we hear ourselves from both sides of eardrums
1. Outside – sound comes from our voice cords, through our mouth, through air and into our ears
2. Inside – sound comes from voice chords towards the mentioned Eustachian tube to our eardrums (opposite side of eardrum, compared to no. 1)
So we hear ourselves in a slightly deeper tone than we actually speak, and the recorded voice we hear is how others hear us.
Yes, I get embarrassed every time and wonder why people don’t punch me more often when hearing me speak with this annoying voice
Omg yes! I can answer this one!
Do you ever listen to a recording of yourself and think, “who’s that?” or “that’s not what I sound like, is it?”
Ok so you are the only person in the entire WORLD who hears your voice the way you do.
Here’s why:
Your head is full of air and liquid, both excellent conductors of sound. When you speak, sing, or vocalize at all you are hearing it 2 different ways. Your voice travels from your mouth to your ears for the external sound. However, the sound waves travel through all the air pockets in your face like sinus cavities, mouth, and nose as well as the liquid or gelatinous textures of your eyeballs and brain. Giving you the internal sound.
This is why your scream isn’t painful to hear like other people’s because the internal sound waves equalize the external summer’s appointment there pressure in your ears.
Latest Answers