"Brain stores voices differently" was the hook of an article that recently caught my attention. When it comes to voice, I always read on with great interest ...
The quintessence of the article: Thanks to a German study, it has now also been scientifically proven that distinctive voices stick in the memory more quickly and are therefore recognized more quickly than less pronounced voices. If a voice is very characteristic, the brain immediately lays a memory trace when it is heard for the first time. So the brain truly listens and processes what it hears differently. The laid track is later reactivated when this voice is heard again, the voice is successfully retrieved from episodic memory and thus identified as known.
Bingo! This is very logical. But also very important. And once again shows the great necessity to train our voice in order to lead it to its optimal development potential in our everyday communication. Because sometimes it is precisely the particularly unpleasant, shrill or cutting voices that quickly stick in the memory. Settle there and create spontaneous defense against the next contact.
Only if the voice is sympathetic sounds, clear, sonorous and memorable, our voice becomes our very own acoustic brand, our own voice brand. On the phone, as a door opener to further interest and future conversations, but just as much in a personal meeting.
An interesting question about this: So how often do we have to talk to someone so that this person recognizes us by the voice after the first word? The obvious answer: The more distinctive our voice is, the more recognizable, the faster we are reminded vocally! Just today I spoke on the phone with a new customer. He is the head of the telephone sales department of a bank. We had a longer briefing conversation – I can already hear his very distinctive and good voice after this conversation. I will recognize this contact blindly, so to speak, in the next conversation. My memory has laid the trail of memory! Not a bad thing in direct customer contact when the phone rings and I can greet him by name immediately after his first tone!
Scientific findings on the subject of voice are of course always welcome to me. But why complicate things when two words are enough to express the scope of a characteristic voice? Voice Sells! It can be that simple. Do you agree with me?
Yours, Arno Fischbacher
Source: (The Journal of Neuroscience, 2014; doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0581-14.2014))
(Friedrich Schiller University Jena, 15.08.2014 – AKR)
Leave a Comment