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Inner Speech

plato.stanford.edu

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Re: Inner Speech

#81

Post by noduerme »

politelemon wrote: post #2

It's a bit odd reading this because I learned just a few months ago, right here, that I am aphantastic (no mental imagery). Shortly after that, while discussing with some coworkers, I also learned I am anauralic (no inner voice). It appears they do sometimes go together: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8551557/ I think for those of us who don't have an inner voice, section "3.2 The Semantic Content View"…

If you're anauralic, what happens when you're reading and you hit a foreign word, or a word you don't know? Do you have to say it out loud, or can you "hear" the pronunciation in your mind by essentially speaking it sublingually? For me, I think my "inner voice" really is just sublingual speech wherein I don't move my lips, tongue or vocal chords. Although I can also "hear" the voices of other people I know if I think about them talking. (This would seem to be a requisite skill if you want to do impressions of people).

[edit: Maybe "sublingual" isn't the correct term for what I'm describing. I remember reading about some MRI experiments where they asked people to "talk" without making any sound, and this activated the speech parts of the brain as if they were using motor function to speak. But I can't recall the term used for doing this.]

Re: Inner Speech

#82

Post by vidarh »

Armisael16 wrote: post #7
xwolfi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then, by which mean did you "ask yourself the same" ? Or is it that you cannot imagine a conversation ?

I imagine it’s just an ingrained use of language picked up from other people - no thought behind it, like an atheist who says ‘Christ’ as an expletive.

It goes beyond that, I think, in that many of us have gone most of our lives believing others used this language metaphorically, and assigning a meaning to these words.

I was about 45 by the point I realized most people to varying degrees actually meant that they saw things when imagining them.

And so to me it's not that there no thought behind it, because I do something when I "imagine" something, just not the same thing. The word means something different to me, and most of the time you wouldn't notice even when it's staring you in the face.

E.g."I imagined her face" has a meaning to me even though I can't literally see a face when imagining it, but I can recall qualities and emotions and sensations of it anyway and to me those things add up to the meaning of that word, because nobody ever thought to assume it needed explaining that it was literal.

Opening that line of inquiry quickly makes it apparent that we assume a whole lot about how similar our inner lives are that just doesn't consistently hold up, but that we don't challenge without digging into precisely how people use various words.

Re: Inner Speech

#83

Post by prossercj »

politelemon wrote: post #2

It's a bit odd reading this because I learned just a few months ago, right here, that I am aphantastic (no mental imagery). Shortly after that, while discussing with some coworkers, I also learned I am anauralic (no inner voice). It appears they do sometimes go together: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8551557/ I think for those of us who don't have an inner voice, section "3.2 The Semantic Content View"…

Okay, I'll bite. Pardon my ignorance, but this is a new concept to me. If you have no inner voice, how are you able to speak? Surely you formed those words in your mind before writing them. Is it that you only do so when speaking to others, and never to yourself?

Re: Inner Speech

#84

Post by vidarh »

raducu wrote: post #32
politelemon wrote: post #2

It's a bit odd reading this because I learned just a few months ago, right here, that I am aphantastic (no mental imagery). Shortly after that, while discussing with some coworkers, I also learned I am anauralic (no inner voice). It appears they do sometimes go together: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8551557/ I think for those of us who don't have an inner voice, section "3.2 The Semantic Content View"…

> I am aphantastic Were you always like this? I clearly remember as a child/teenager I had exquisite inner imagery, but around 17-18 anxiety set in and the imagery slowly faded away to the point that today I can only conjure faint images for fractions of a second

Not the person above, but I believe I've always been like this. I can vividly remember (but not see) imagery from dreams that I know I see while dreaming, and I think I'd remember if I used to do that in my waking state. I've also had one incidence of seeing things as an adult, during meditation, and never managed to again, so I do have a clear idea of what is possible to compare to.

Re: Inner Speech

#85

Post by vidarh »

_tom_ wrote: post #80

I do either, depending on the situation. For me, verbalizing things, internally, is like writing things down - it allows for more organization and review. (Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging ) It's clear to me that the main ideas come non-verbally first, and then I translate into words.

I will have conversations with myself, but it's clear thoughts also form without verbal translation.

Interestingly another distinction when it comes to inner life is whether people have a monologue or multiple voices. I only have a rather incessant monologue of myself narrating and practicing things to say or going over multiple sides of an argument in my own voice. It only ever stops when I sleep or meditate.

Re: Inner Speech

#86

Post by vidarh »

neoberg wrote: post #19

I'm not sure if I have inner voice or not. Do you really "hear" a voice? I can imagine concepts as well as construct whole sentences in my mind but there is no actual voice that I'm hearing. Is this what's called inner voice?

I don't believe I hear a voice, but some argue they do, up to and including hearing different voices, as well as hearing music with the correct instruments (I can "hear music", but it's always as if I'm singing or humming it).

For my part, my "inner voice" feels to me like my real voice, but I have the sensation of "almost vocalizing" it, but cutting it off before producing any sound - whether in or out of my head.

So I recognize it as "me", but can't say there is an actual sensation of hearing the sound.

Re: Inner Speech

#87

Post by vidarh »

mandmandam wrote: post #76
sparks1970 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. This video was interesting to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNQyubd9ARc&t=60s in it you are asked to shout "I like crickets" and then to whisper "I like crickets" again, in your mind and not out loud. The presenter then claims, "The volume is the same because you can't change the volume of the voice in your head, only the tone and pitch." My experience of trying this is that I can produce the phrase…

I can change volume and tone. There's something quite arrogant about groundless declarations of other's mental limitations. The other example that comes to mind is the notion that people only dream in black and white - so daft.

I think to some it's easy to assume because how you think feels so natural that it's hard to imagine how it could be different, and so much easier to assume it's just misunderstandings.

Re: Inner Speech

#88

Post by vidarh »

sparks1970 wrote: post #61
netcan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "hearing" the voice is the confusing part, or only. Hard to know if it's a difference in the phenomenon itself or in how people characterize and perceive it. To me the question is about thinking conversationally. Internal dialogue. Whether or not that dialogue is perceived as sound is perhaps interesting, it's not hard to imagine it working differently. Written language exists. Sign language. Non-auditory lan…

What do you mean by "internal dialogue" here? To me a dialog would mean some back-and-forth, some difference of opinion or two individuals sharing ideas that one side doesn't have. Does your inner voice have autonomy, does it want things separate from what "you" want? Is it in any way "other" from you? Apologies if these seem like dumb questions. I have never heard a voice in my head so it's a bit like a monochromati…

You will often find authors talking about characters "telling them" what they do, and while some means that metaphorically, if you dig into it you'll find a lot of people who mean it literally. Not (usually) in the sense that they believe this is some separate entity, but that they do often have the characters story play out with varying fidelity of both visual and aural presence in their mind.

A surprising number of people also have e.g. multiple voices speaking in their minds (again, the distinction between mental illnesses causing people to have intrusive voices they believe to be other entities vs "just" seeing them as thoughts/imagination playing out)

Re: Inner Speech

#89

Post by omani »

to my fellow humans:

if you read a comment saying it has no inner voice, remember...

GPT is active on HN, too. ;)

Re: Inner Speech

#90

Post by bsenftner »

shunyaekam wrote: post #79

What is the difference in inner dialogue in happy vs unhappy people? I guess the inner voice is what one strives to just observe and let be while meditating. After a good meditation session I feel less mentally tense (eg not clinging on to superficially important todo items). Seems like inner voice is related to mental state in a major way. I have pretty severe adhd and am unmedicated so my inner voice is more like a…

Unhappy people with an inner voice have a grumpy crank personality as their inner voice. Taming and neutralizing that grumpy crank is the entire point of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy school of Psychology. They have a process called an Inner Dialogue Audit where a list of 10-20 simple questions are given, and you ask yourself these questions. If you answer "yes" to any of them, then your inner voice has a bias, is effectively lying to you about your moment to moment observations and thoughts. And once this bias is identified, it evaporates because deception known no longer deceives.
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