Vocal Congruence: The Voice and the Self Measured by Interoceptive Awareness

Abstract

Voices are, by nature, idiosyncratic representations of individuals because they possess anatomical, physiological, and psychological characteristics that are unique to them, which contribute to vocal output, and thus, establish the voice as a salient marker of their individuality. The areas of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience have examined the psychological and neurological constructs that form one's sense of self and have employed measures of interoceptive and exteroceptive abilities to discover the underlying constructs of the sense of self. This study employed measures of interoceptive awareness to assess level of vocal congruence. Forty-one participants analyzed in this study underwent a heartbeat detection task designed to assess the level of interoceptive awareness and were placed into two groups: those high in interoceptive awareness and those low in interoceptive awareness. They completed two tasks, a speaking task, which included structured passages and conversation, and a listening task, where they listened to themselves in the speaking task. Following each task, they completed a Vocal Congruence Scale designed to assess the level of identification they have within themselves related to the sound of their voice. Individuals scoring high in interoceptive awareness scored significantly higher in vocal congruence than those scoring lower in interoceptive awareness. Additionally, when analyzed with other measures of personality, anxiety, mood, and voice handicap, the Vocal Congruence Scale appears to measure a unique aspect of vocal identity with one's self that encompasses interoceptive awareness.

Publication Title

Journal of Voice

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