The Effect of Listening to Recordings of One’s Voice on Attentional Bias and Auditory Verbal Learning

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that exposure to recording of one’s own voice can cause a negative reaction. This reaction may affect one’s attentional system and auditory verbal learning rate. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of listening to recordings of one’s own voice on attentional bias in one experiment and to assess the effect on auditory verbal learning in a second experiment. The present study was an experimental study that was designed and conducted as two separate experiments. Fifty-five subjects participated in the first experiment to investigate the effect of listening to recordings of one’s own voice on attentional bias. The auditory Stroop test was performed on a computer with two different voices, i.e., 1) the recorded voice of another person and 2) a recording of the participant’s own voice. The average reaction time of the participants was compared for the two recordings. Sixty-one subjects participated in the second experiment to assess the effect of listening to a recording of one’s own voice on auditory verbal learning. The 61 subjects were divided randomly into two groups, i.e., an experimental group (31 participants) and a control group (30 participants). The Rey auditory verbal learning test (RAVLT, Persian version) was used with two different recordings, i.e., recordings of the participants’ own voices for the experimental group and recordings of another person’s voice for the control group. The mean scores of the two groups were compared for each trial.The comparison of the participants’ mean of reaction time, which was measured twice in the experimental group, showed a significant difference. The comparison of participants’ mean scores between the two groups in the second experiment, showed a significant difference only in the first trial (word span), and no significant difference was found in the other trials. The findings of the study showed that listening a recording of one’s own voice caused attentional bias. Also, listening to a recording of one’s own voice resulted in less auditory verbal learning in word span than listening to the recorded voice of another person.