Why do other people hear our voice differently than we do?

We probably all had this experience. We listen to a tape recording of ourselves taken with some friends. We insist that the tape doesn't sound at all like our voice, but everyone else's sounds reasonably accurate. According to speech therapist Dr. Mike D'Asaro, there is a universal pattern of rejection of own voice. Is there a scientific explanation?Yes the speech begins at the larynx, where the vibration emanates. Part of vibration is conducted through the air – i.e. what your friends (and the tape recorder) hear when you speak. Another part of the vibration is directed through the fluids and solids of our head. Our inner and middle ears are part of caverns hollowed out by bone-the hardest bone of the skull. The inner ear contains fluid, the middle ear contains air and the two press against each other. The larynx is also surrounded by soft tissues full of liquid. Sound transmits differently through air than through solids and liquids, and this account for almost all of the tonal differences we hear on a recording of our own voices.When we speak we are not hearing our voices solely with our ears, but also through internal hearing, mostly liquid transmission through a series of body organs. During an electric guitar solo, who hears the "real' sound? The audience, the guitarist or a tape recorder located inside the guitar? The question is moot. There are three different sounds being made by a guitarist, and the principle is same for the human voice. We can't say that either the tape recorder or the person who speaks hear the "right" voice, only that the voices are indeed different.

Dr. D'Asaro points out that we have internal memory of our voice in our brain, and the memory is richer than what we hear in a tape playback. Listening to a recording of our own voice is like listening to a symphony on a bad transistor radio-the sound is recognizable but a pale imitation.