System sounds "queued" up

Occasionally, when I've had my mac on mute for a period of time (eg., several hours), and then plug in a set of headphones, I get a backlog of system sounds played to me. (chirps, new email sounds, etc).

These are sounds that would've/should've been played over the day, but weren't. It seems the sounds are queued / buffered, then when I plug in my headphones, the queue is emptied.

What causes this, and how do I prevent this?

Solution 1:

This is a bug that still exists in 10.8 unfortunately. It also randomly happens now when turning on AirPlay Mirroring so you can hear it on the big screen!

www.apple.com/feedback