When you speak, your voice generates sound waves that travel through the air until they reach your ears. This allows you to hear yourself when you talk. However, sometimes you may notice that your voice sounds louder or different than usual when you speak. What causes this phenomenon?
The experience of hearing your own voice more loudly or distinctly than normal is called vocal feedback. It occurs when sound waves from your voice reverberate back and enter your ears shortly after you speak. Vocal feedback is also known as voice reverberation, autophony, or hearing your own voice.
This effect can be disconcerting, but it has a simple explanation based on science and anatomy. Keep reading to learn more about vocal feedback, what causes it, when it happens, and how it relates to hearing and speech.
What Is Vocal Feedback?
Vocal feedback, also known as autophony, occurs when you hear the sound of your own voice in your ears as you speak. Normally when you talk, the sound from your voice travels in all directions away from your mouth. However, some of the sound waves also travel into your ears, allowing you to hear yourself.
Under normal conditions, your brain uses several mechanisms to dampen this vocal feedback effect. This prevents hearing a loud, prominent echo of your voice as you talk. But sometimes those mechanisms get disrupted. When this happens, you temporarily hear your voice louder and more prominently in your ears as you speak. This is called vocal feedback or autophony.
The main characteristic of vocal feedback is hearing a hollow, echoing quality to your voice as you talk. Your voice may sound deeper and more resonant. The effect is most noticeable when you speak loudly, such as when shouting or yelling. But it can also occur during normal speech.
Vocal feedback can be alarming if you’re not expecting it. You may feel like your ears are plugged up or your own voice sounds unfamiliar. However, it’s a common experience and not necessarily a sign of a medical problem.
Key Features
The main features of vocal feedback include:
- Hearing an echoing quality to your own voice
- Voice sounds louder and more resonant
- Often occurs when speaking loudly or yelling
- Can happen during normal speech too
- Feeling of plugged ears or unfamiliar voice
- Typically temporary effect
What Causes Vocal Feedback?
Vocal feedback occurs due to a disruption in the mechanisms that usually muffle your perception of your own voice. Normally, when you speak, several things prevent you from clearly hearing yourself:
Bone Conduction
High-frequency sound waves from your voice travel through bones in your head and mask the lower-frequency sounds coming back from your mouth.
Anti-Resonances in the Vocal Tract
Shape of throat, mouth, nasal cavities create anti-resonances that dampen feedback.
Middle Ear Muscle Reflexes
Tiny muscles in the middle ear tighten slightly in response to loud sounds, reducing feedback.
Auditory Nerve Dampening
Your auditory nerve adapts to the sound of your own voice, muting it slightly.
Anything that interferes with these mechanisms can allow you to hear your voice too loudly through bone and air conduction as you talk. Common causes of vocal feedback include:
- Blocked ear canals from wax buildup or ear infection
- Presence of fluid in the middle ear
- Perforated eardrum
- Growths or swelling in the nasal cavity or throat
- Neurologic conditions affecting the auditory nerve
The increased vocal feedback is your brain’s way of letting you know something is interfering with its ability to regulate your perception of your own voice.
When Does Vocal Feedback Happen?
You’re more likely to experience vocal feedback when conditions allow your voice to travel back to your ears without its usual dampening. This can occur:
- When you yell, shout, or speak loudly
- In locations with echoes or resonance like a shower, cave, or basement
- When you have respiratory congestion from a cold
- While wearing earplugs or earmuffs
- After inserting cotton swabs into the ear canal
It’s also common to get temporary vocal feedback when you have a blocked Eustachian tube, ear infection, or swollen adenoids. Chronic conditions like allergies, nasal polyps, or a deviated septum can also contribute to long-term autophony.
In most cases, the vocal feedback resolves on its own once the temporary irritation or blockage clears. But if it persists, it warrants checking with an otolaryngologist to identify and address the underlying cause.
Is Vocal Feedback Related to Hearing Loss and Tinnitus?
There is no direct link between vocal feedback and hearing loss or tinnitus. However, issues that affect the ear canal, middle ear, and Eustachian tube can potentially contribute to autophony, hearing changes, and ringing sensations in the ear.
Ear wax buildup, infections, abnormalities of the bones in the middle ear, or growths in the ear canal or nasal cavity can all block or muffle sounds from reaching the inner ear. This can make you perceive sounds like your own voice as louder than normal. But it can also cause partial deafness or other auditory changes like tinnitus.
Often vocal feedback, hearing loss, and tinnitus stem from similar sources like:
- Earwax impaction
- Ear infections or fluid
- Foreign bodies lodged in the ear
- Tumors of the ear
- Bony growths in the ear canal
- Poor Eustachian tube function
- Nasal polyps or deviated septum
So while vocal feedback itself does not necessarily cause hearing loss or tinnitus, an underlying issue affecting the ears could result in multiple symptoms – including autophony. Evaluating and treating that root cause can help resolve all of the problems.
Is Temporary Vocal Feedback Serious?
Brief episodes of hearing your voice echo or sound different are usually not serious. Temporary causes like congestion from a cold, trapped water in the ear after swimming, or yelling loudly in an enclosed space often resolve on their own.
In these situations, the vocal feedback goes away once the temporary irritation or obstruction has passed. Try not to worry about intermittent autophony that correlates with something like nasal congestion or vigorous voice use.
However, if the vocal feedback persists for more than a few days or keeps recurring, consult an otolaryngologist. The same remedies that address ear infections, fluid buildup, and other problems causing autophony may also help with potential hearing changes or ringing in the ears.
When to See a Doctor
You should make an appointment with your doctor or an ear, nose and throat specialist if you experience any of the following:
- Vocal feedback that lasts more than a few days
- Frequent reoccurrence of autophony symptoms
- Significant discomfort, pain, or hearing changes
- Drainage from the ears
- Dizziness or vertigo
- Ear pressure or feeling of fullness
- Tinnitus or muffled hearing
- Sore throat or mouth sores
- Swollen glands in the neck
An ENT can check for issues like fluid in the middle ear, ear canal blockages, perforated eardrum, nasal polyps, or masses in the throat. Prompt evaluation and treatment can help resolve stubborn vocal feedback and prevent secondary problems with your hearing or comfort.
Diagnosing the Cause of Vocal Feedback
To determine what’s causing bothersome vocal feedback, an otolaryngologist will likely:
- Ask about your symptoms and medical history
- Check your ears, nose, and throat
- Conduct hearing tests
- Examine your ears with a scope
- Test your Eustachian tube function
- Order CT or MRI scans if needed
- Refer you to an audiologist for additional testing
This comprehensive exam can pinpoint sources of obstruction related to the sinuses, nasal cavity, throat, Eustachian tube, or inner, middle, or outer ear. Typical causes like inflammation, polyps, tumors, foreign bodies, or temporomandibular joint syndrome can then be treated.
Treatments for Vocal Feedback
Treatment for persistent vocal feedback involves identifying and addressing the specific root cause. Common remedies include:
- Removing earwax blockages
- Treating ear infections with antibiotic drops
- Using oral antibiotics for bacterial infections
- Draining fluid from the middle ear
- Nasal steroid sprays for inflammation
- Surgically removing polyps or tumors
- Using hearing aids or sound therapy for auditory nerve issues
- Performing septoplasty or sinus surgery if needed
- Fitting oral appliances for temporomandibular joint syndrome
Relieving any obstruction or inflammation that is interfering with the dampening of your own voice usually resolves troubling vocal feedback. Follow all treatment recommendations to help prevent recurrent autophony issues.
Coping with Annoying Vocal Feedback
Bothersome vocal feedback can make your voice seem unfamiliar and feel uncomfortable when you talk. While waiting for it to resolve or seeking treatment, try these tips:
- Avoid shouting, yelling, or other loud vocal use
- Hum softly to self-soothe
- Chew gum to dampen resonance
- Use earplugs or headphones to mask it
- Play music or use white noise when talking
- Consider anxiety counseling if it worries you
Focus on the reassurance that vocal feedback is temporary and not damaging to your throat or vocal cords. Have patience while doctors address the root cause, and the bothersome symptoms should fade.
Preventing Vocal Feedback
You can reduce instances of annoying vocal feedback by:
- Treating colds, allergies, and sinus issues promptly
- Avoiding cotton swabs and objects in ears
- Having earwax removed professionally
- Wearing earplugs when swimming
- Using vocal restraint and proper technique when singing or public speaking
- Warming up your voice and avoiding overuse
- Staying hydrated to avoid vocal cord strain
- Avoiding loud environments with echoes
Keeping your ears, vocal cords, and nasal passages healthy can help prevent the conditions that disrupt your brain’s ability to muffle your own voice during speech. But never hesitate to get checked out if vocal feedback is frequent or accompanied by other symptoms.
Conclusion
In summary, vocal feedback or autophony occurs when you hear your own voice prominently reverberating in your ears as you speak. This happens because of a temporary disruption in the auditory system mechanisms that usually mute your perception of your own voice.
Brief vocal feedback is common and not serious. But persistent or recurring episodes should be evaluated by an otolaryngologist. Treatments aim at the root obstruction or inflammation to restore normal dampening of your vocalizations.
With patience and care for your ears, throat, and nasal passages, annoying vocal feedback can often be avoided or resolved. Let your doctor know if it becomes frequent or prolonged so any underlying issues can be treated.
