Why does it seem that people dislike recordings of their voice more than photos of themselves?

ALostInquirer@lemm.ee to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 153 points –

Personally, I'm not a fan of either, so it's always been a little interesting to me to run into people that are more averse to hearing a recording of their voice.

(Also is there a dedicated term for audio-only voice recordings? 🤨)

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I suspect it's because we see accurate representations of ourselves in every mirror. With voice though what we hear normally is distorted by the resonence of our jawbone, so hearing the version everyone else does when it's played back from a recording is alien and weird.

Nobody ever sees us mirrored though

Might make for an interesting experiment to take picture of someone in a mirror and through the mirror (pinhole or two-way mirror) and then ask people which of the two is real and which is the doctored one. Neither are edited of course but one would look wrong for anyone who met the person in the photos.

I suspect this is basically it, however I've often thought similar could be said of one's appearance; as it's distorted by different lighting, whether your clothing's gotten wrinkled up a certain way, the wind's messed up your hair, or you accidentally smudged makeup or some dirt on you somewhere. Although that all is also typically easier to adjust (give or take the lighting and wind) than your voice, so that undoubtedly plays into it.