Dr. Chang Mentioned on NBC News Regarding Sound of One's Voice

Dr. Chang was mentioned today in a NBC News article on their popular Body Odds section. The article entitled "why you hate the sound of your own voice" describes why people sound and often dislike the way their voice sounds on a recording.

What we hear when we speak, however, is air- and bone-conducted sounds. Vibrations from our vocal cords directly reach the cochlea. Our skulls deceive us by, in fact, lowering the frequency of these vibrations along the way, which is why we often perceive ourselves as higher-pitched when we listen to a recording.  

“When [someone] listens to a recording of their voice speaking, the bone-conducted pathway that they consider part of their ‘normal’ voice is eliminated, and they hear only the air-conducted component in unfamiliar isolation—what everybody else actually hears,” says Dr. Chris Chang, an otolaryngologist at Fauquier Ear, Nose & Throat Consultants in Warrenton, Virginia. [link]

I wrote a more comprehensive blog article on this phenomenon here.

In any case, very cool I got quoted!!!

Source:
Why you hate the sound of your own voice. NBC News 4/2/13

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Stem Cells Restore Toddler's Congenital Hearing Loss

In a potentially revolutionary treatment, a two years old toddler born deaf has had her hearing restored after receiving stem cells from her banked umbilical cord blood. (Reported in ABC News)

Madeline Connor at age 1 year old was completely deaf in the right ear and had severe hearing loss on the left. Normally hearing aids or cochlear implant would have been the only options.

However, in January 2012 at the age of 2 years old, Madeline underwent a "simple" experiment whereby stem cells were infused into her damaged inner ear. The stem cells were derived from umbilical cord blood that was banked at the time of her delivery at the Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center.

Over the next 6 months, there has been dramatic improvement in her hearing. She is also now talking for the first time.

Madeline also is not the only child who has undergone this revolutionary stem cell treatment. Apparently, there are ten other children who are being followed after undergoing similar stem cell infusion derived from banked cord blood.

It must be stressed that though Madeline's progress is quite amazing, it is still too early to say if this is a "bona fide" treatment for congenital hearing loss.

• Will the improvement continue and more importantly, last over years to decades?
• Will it work for other children?
• What is the expected hearing improvement with stem cell infusion?
• Will it treat ALL forms of nerve-damaged hearing loss?
• Does it have to be stem cells derived from cord blood or are stem cells derived from other sources possible (i.e., skin)?
• Can adults with non-congential hearing loss also benefit?

I eagerly await the outcome of this FDA approved trial which hopefully will be published at some point in the near future.

I also eagerly await the protocol used to obtain and infuse the stem cells. I suspect the infusion of stem cells is similar to that done when steroids are infused into the ear for sudden hearing loss as shown in this video below. However, this is just a guess of mine.

Source:

Cord Blood Stem Cells Restore Toddler's Hearing. ABC News 7/11/12

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Why Does My Voice Sound Different on Recording and Treatment Options

Every so often, I have a patient who presents to my office with a complaint that their voice sounds different on recording than what they themselves hear.

In particular, singers who come in state specifically that their vocal recordings sounds slightly flat when they thought they were singing in perfect pitch.

So why does this happen? Unfortunately, it is physics and fundamentally integrated to how the ear, skull, and sound transmission work. In other words, it can't be "treated" with surgery or medications.

What other people hear when you sing or talk is air conducted sound that gets transmitted through the ear canal, eardrum, middle ear bones, and ultimately to the cochlea hearing organ (pathway A).

Image by Chittka and Brockmann Modified from Wikipedia

The sound the individual singer/talker hears is not only sound transmitted via the air (pathway A) but also by vibration of the skull itself directly to the cochlea hearing organ bypassing the outer and middle ear completely (pathway B). The mechanical properties of the skull enhance the deeper, lower-frequency vibrations.

Therefore, when a talker/singer listens to a recording of their voice speaking/singing, the bone-conducted pathway that they consider part of their “normal” voice is eliminated, and they hear only the air-conducted component in unfamiliar isolation (what everybody else actually hears).

SO... what is a singer/talker to do if they are disturbed by the way they sound to others? Particularly, what is a singer to do when they always sing a little flat when they truly think they are singing in pitch?

One can wear earplugs in order to hear only bone-conducted vibrations and get used to their alter-voice and undergo speech/voice therapy. OR... accept that their voice IS different.

For singers, I highly recommend using HearFones Headsetwhich is a funny looking head device that allows an individual singer to hear what they really sound like and more importantly what the audience would hear! In addition, while using HearFones, the singer would be able to hear himself more predominantly over the rest of the ensemble thus helping him to improve the quality of his/her individual vocal quality output.

Over time, singers will be able to automatically adjust their singing such that they no longer will need such a device to sing in tune with others when in familiar surroundings. BUT... in new environments (new concert hall, outdoor arena, etc), it is not unusual that their singing may become off again...

This is why professional singers often wear earpieces that convey sounds recorded by microphones placed in the audience... and also why they sometimes sound flat and out-of-tune when they don't!

It's also why it is VERY important to rehearse in a new place before a concert.

On a related note, most individuals state that they do not "like" they way they sound on a recording. However, according to one study, people unconsciously prefer their recorded voice over others.

Of note Dr. Chang was mentioned on NBC news regarding this question in this story.

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