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Bone conduction headphones make your own voice sound less weird

Listening to a recording of yourself speaking can be unnerving – but headphones that alter the sound can make your voice seem more familiar and may help us understand schizophrenia hallucinations

By Alex Wilkins

15 February 2023

A man using bone-conduction earphones to make a phone call

Bone conduction earphones send sounds straight to your cochlea, without needing to use the ear drum

Kayoko Hayashi/iStockphoto/Getty Images

It is easier to tell your own voice apart from other voices when listening to recordings through bone conduction headphones, because they mimic the vibrations from your skull that the brain detects as you speak.

Listening to a recording of your voice can sound very different from hearing it as you speak, because the self-voice you hear as you chat is filtered through your skull.

This was thought mainly to be due to the bone altering the auditory signal you perceive,…

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