You hear your own voice when you talk because of a combination of air conduction and bone conduction, with bone conduction amplifying the lower frequencies.
Here's a breakdown of how it works:
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Air Conduction: This is how you hear most sounds around you. Sound waves travel through the air, enter your ear canal, vibrate your eardrum, and are then transmitted through the middle ear bones to your inner ear (cochlea). The cochlea converts these vibrations into electrical signals that your brain interprets as sound. Some of your own voice reaches your ears this way, similar to how others hear you.
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Bone Conduction: This is the key to why your voice sounds different to you than it does to others. When you speak, your vocal cords vibrate. These vibrations are not only transmitted through the air but also directly through the bones of your skull to your inner ear. This internal pathway provides a more direct route for the sound to reach the cochlea, bypassing the outer and middle ear.
Differences in Perceived Sound
The sound you hear via bone conduction differs from the sound you hear via air conduction in several ways:
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Lower Frequencies Enhanced: Bone conduction tends to amplify lower frequencies more than air conduction. This is why your own voice often sounds deeper and richer to you than it does in a recording.
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Internal vs. External: Air-conducted sound is subject to modification by the environment (e.g., echoing, absorption), while bone-conducted sound is a more direct and "raw" signal.
Why Your Voice Sounds Different in Recordings
Recordings only capture the sound that travels through the air. Therefore, you're only hearing the air-conducted portion of your voice when you listen to a recording, lacking the bone-conducted component that you're accustomed to hearing. This explains why your recorded voice sounds higher pitched, thinner, and generally different compared to what you perceive internally.
In summary, the combination of external air conduction and internal bone conduction, with bone conduction boosting the lower frequencies, is why you hear your voice when you talk. It also explains the difference between how you perceive your voice and how others (or recordings) do.
