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Study shows our own voice is recognised above others but that new voices can also be prioritised into our ‘sense of self’
Whether or not we like the sound of it, our ability to pick out our own voice is highly developed.
But new research from Abertay academics has now suggested that our brain can also quickly learn to recognise a second voice over others if we are asked to think of it as our own.
The study, published in the British Journal of Psychology, set out to explore how our brains process both our own voice and recorded voices we have been assigned ownership of, with a view to informing a wide range of potential uses such as assistive technologies for speech impaired people or customised voices in video games.
Through a series of voice recognition tasks, researchers first tested how effectively participants could recognise a recorded voice that had been assigned to them to think of as their own.
The group was asked to listen out for words spoken by the ‘new voice’ assigned to them, but also those labelled as belonging to a ‘stranger’ and ‘friend’.
Even after a very brief exposure to the sound of their assigned new voice, participants immediately became better at recognising it over the others, suggesting their brain had quickly taken ownership and prioritised the sound.
In a second part of the study, participants' own voices were recorded and added to the task, with results showing these were always recognised fastest.
Dr Neil Kirk of Abertay University’s Department of Sociological and Psychological Sciences, who led the research, said the findings could be further developed to inform a variety of products or services.
He said:
With the recent rise in voice cloning tools powered by artificial intelligence, our work suggests there may be benefits to using a person’s own voice in digital technologies designed to enhance self-representation. For example, there could be potential uses in assistive devices for people who have lost the ability to speak, or in interactive entertainment in the use of custom online avatars. There’s also an interesting question for further exploration around our ability to take on new voices as our own in the digital world, and the benefits or issues that may have, particularly as our online and real-world interactions become ever more entwined.
Professor Sheila Cunningham who collaborated on the project said:
We know that our brains give special attention to information that relates to ourselves in some way, like hearing our own name being spoken across a noisy room. These results show that this additional prioritisation seems to be able to extend to new voices that we feel a sense of ownership over, showing how adaptable our sense of self can be.
