Brains Applied's video: Why do we HATE our own voice

Hi there, In today's video, I'm discussing a scenario that everyone recognizes: the moment where you hear your own voice on a recording. For many people, this is a cringeworthy moment. But why? A thing that you might already know is that how others hear our voice is different from how we hear our own voice. When we are talking, our vocal chords make the air vibrate, resulting in soundwaves. But they also produce soundwaves in our bones. These soundwaves are conducted towards our inner ear, where they are picked up by our auditory senses. Our bones are, however, specifically good at conducting lower soundwaves. Your voice will therefore sound different and lower in your own head than it does in reality. If you're familiar with the mere-exposure effect, you might think that this difference is the reason why we prefer the voice in our own head. However, research has shown that people really do prefer their own voice when they hear different voices on a recording. (Note that the participants were not aware that their own voice was used. People are in general quite bad at recognizing their own voice.) The main reason why we hate our own voice seems to be that when we are talking, we're not aware of all the tiny mistakes that we make. The doubt in our voice, the accidental weird pronunciation of a word, etc. However, when we are talking, our brain decreases its activity in the part of the auditory cortex that recognizes voices. It's just active enough to check that what we are saying is in line with the "speech template" (an efference copy). The consequence of all this is that when we hear ourselves talk on a recording, it doesn't sound as perfect as we thought we sounded. Check out the short video, I hope you like it and of course: Don't forget to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE! Follow Brains Applied on Instagram (and Twitter): https://www.instagram.com/brainsapplied/ https://twitter.com/BrainsApplied Music by Bensound.com Credits for the animated movie goes to the National Institutes of Health. References: Dodgson, L. (2018). People often hate the sound of their own voice - here are some reasons why. Insider. Retrieved from https://www.insider.com/why-we-hate-the-sound-of-our-own-voice-2018-9 Greenlee, J. D., Jackson, A. W., Chen, F., Larson, C. R., Oya, H., Kawasaki, H., ... & Howard III, M. A. (2011). Human auditory cortical activation during self-vocalization. PloS one, 6(3). Holzman, P. S., Berger, A., & Rousey, C. (1967). Voice confrontation: A bilingual study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7(4p1), 423. Heinks-Maldonado, T. H., Nagarajan, S. S., & Houde, J. F. (2006). Magnetoencephalographic evidence for a precise forward model in speech production. Neuroreport, 17(13), 1375. Holzman, P. S., & Rousey, C. (1966). The voice as a percept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4(1), 79. Hughes, S. M., & Harrison, M. A. (2013). I like my voice better: Self-enhancement bias in perceptions of voice attractiveness. Perception, 42(9), 941-949. Jeakl, P. (2018). The real reason the sound of your own voice makes you cringe. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jul/12/the-real-reason-the-sound-of-your-own-voice-makes-you-cringe Kleinberger, R. (2018). Why you don't like the sound of your own voice. [Video File]. Retrieved from Why you don’t like the sound of your own voice | Rébecca Kleinberger Peng, Z., Wang, Y., Meng, L., Liu, H., & Hu, Z. (2019). One's own and similar voices are more attractive than other voices. Australian Journal of Psychology, 71(3), 212-222. Rousey, C., & Holzman, P. S. (1967). Recognition of one's own voice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6(4p1), 464.