Why does hearing yourself speak with a few seconds of delay, completely crash your brain?
In: Biology
Professional TV audio engineer here, for guests that appear on TV shows “remotely” a special mix has to be sent to their earpiece called a “mix-minus.” This is a mix of the show audio MINUS the guest’s own voice. This is done specifically to avoid the echo effect in their ear that happens due to phone / satellite / net delay getting the signal to their ear. A separate mix-minus needs to be created for each remote guest so that they can all hear each other but not themselves. If you ever see a guest on a show rip their earpiece out in the middle of their hit, it is most likely because the audio engineer sent them the wrong mix-minus and they are hearing themselves on a delay.
In a show with many remote guests, its easy to cross up which line is going to which guest. It is also usually a VERY simple fix for the engineer and SHOULD be caught before the guest goes on-air. If the producers are competent, they try to get their guests set up in the commercial break and do a comms check to make sure everybody can talk and hear each other correctly. Sometimes guests sit down seconds to their air time and you’ve just gotta wing it.
The anchors in the studio typically hear the entire mix because the proximity to the audio gear allows for near zero delay/latency for them.
EDIT: just realized this doesn’t really answer the question posed originally about WHY hearing the echo messes with your ability to talk and think. This was more an interesting side note to it. Hope thats ok!
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