Glad You Asked: Why do we hate the sound of our own voice?

 

Why is it that we hate the sound of our own voice?

Glad you asked.

"It's something almost universal." said Marquette University dean of the College of Health Sciences, Dr. William E. Cullinan. "We hate the sound of our own voice because when we hear it on a recording, it sounds foreign."

Dr. Cullinen says that's because when we hear someone else talk, we receive pressure waves to our ear which turn into vibrations which we perceive as sound. When we talk, we get that too but we also get something else. Our vocal cords vibrate up our neck and into our ears. Almost like receiving our own voice in stereo.

"And so for the speaker, it's the combination of those two stimuli that they interpret as the sound of their own voice." said Dr. Cullinan "We perceive it as a richer, fuller sound. When we hear it on a recording, we think of that as somehow, tinny, cheap, somehow not the whole thing. But, in a sense, that is exactly how everyone else hears you."