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rhoohr

4 karma · joined February 4, 2026

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rhoohr··on My psychophysics as a bilateral cochlear implant user
> What is it like to hear vocal folds vibrate?

I wouldn't normally describe hearing a voice as hearing "vibrations". Vibrations are indeed the physical basis of sound, and the auditory system detects changes in air pressure caused by them. But vibrations can also be perceived through touch, and the subjective experience of hearing is quite different from the tactile sensation of feeling something vibrate. When talking about feeling vibrations, I usually think of the touching sensation.

Still, both sensations originate from the same physical phenomenon. You can try to feel your own vocal chords vibrate by placing your fingers on your throat while humming. It's certainly a very different sensation, and touch generally conveys fewer acoustic details than typical hearing, but you're sensing the same underlying physical event.

One interesting example is Dani Valeska (Instagram: @daniivaleska), a Brazilian Sign Language interpreter whose husband is deaf (I couldn't find his name). She shares content about their experiences, and I remember seeing a video in which her husband used the vibrations of her voice, felt by touching her throat, to reproduce what she was saying. This resembles a technique called "tactiling", which has been studied as a tactile aid to speechreading (https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/tactiling-a-us...).

rhoohr··on The Singularity Is Always Near (2006)
That's also my take. The universe is expected to last for trillions of years and only 13 billions years have passed. Life on earth evolved surprisingly fast after reaching the necessary conditions, some recent research on LUCA estimating less than 300 millions years. I believe there are others out there, but too far yet for communication.