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Inner Speech

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Re: Inner Speech

#91

Post by pama »

prossercj wrote: post #83
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?

To people who have trouble with this concept I suggest the analogy to reading without voicing out words yet still internalizing the concepts, and often at a much faster rate than when vocalizing during reading (which in turn can be pleasant for some poetry). It is possible to read multiple lines in parallel and the mechanism is similar to sight reading piano music when you have two (or occasionally three) lines of information that immediately translate to actions in your arms, hands, and fingers. In a related sense, sight reading music does not involve any inner voice or chatter yet a lot of conscious decisions are being made and a lot of hard non-verbal thinking goes into optimizing technique. Human language is just too inefficient for most high performance thinking but it is the best tool we currently have for storing and transmitting thoughts.

Re: Inner Speech

#92

Post by candlemas »

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"…

Did thought bubbles in cartoons/comics confuse you?

Re: Inner Speech

#93

Post by riversflow »

prossercj wrote: post #83
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?

> how are you able to speak?

How are you able to walk? You don’t think about every muscle contraction.

Speaking, writing, drawing and walking are all about the same to me.

(I also have no inner voice and aphantasia)

Re: Inner Speech

#94

Post by jimkleiber »

riversflow wrote: post #93
prossercj wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> how are you able to speak? How are you able to walk? You don’t think about every muscle contraction. Speaking, writing, drawing and walking are all about the same to me. (I also have no inner voice and aphantasia)

I have a lots of questions, as I find it hard for me to imagine:

1) When you read, do you ever say the words in your head or is it always more like an automatic recognition of the characters without voicing them?

2) Can you force yourself to have an inner voice, aka forcing yourself to say something like "I am thinking to myself right now"?

Also, it's ok if you don't want to answer but I'd be curious to learn more about your experience.

Re: Inner Speech

#95

Post by eikenberry »

prossercj wrote: post #83
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?

> Is it that you only do so when speaking to others, and never to yourself?

For me, yes... when I'm thinking about words (spoken or written) I think in those words but otherwise not.

Re: Inner Speech

#97

Post by razerbeans »

jimkleiber wrote: post #94
riversflow wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how are you able to speak? How are you able to walk? You don’t think about every muscle contraction. Speaking, writing, drawing and walking are all about the same to me. (I also have no inner voice and aphantasia)

I have a lots of questions, as I find it hard for me to imagine: 1) When you read, do you ever say the words in your head or is it always more like an automatic recognition of the characters without voicing them? 2) Can you force yourself to have an inner voice, aka forcing yourself to say something like "I am thinking to myself right now"? Also, it's ok if you don't want to answer but I'd be curious to learn more ab…

I'll answer from my own experience (with no inner voice):

1) I have to be very explicit when reading with an inner voice (which goes to your second point). Generally, it is a kind of recognition that a word has a meaning and I "feel" that meaning, if that makes sense?

2) Yes. It feels unnatural though.

Re: Inner Speech

#98

Post by tacheiordache »

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"…

Im aphantastic to some extent and lack inner voice except for certain situations where there is a semblance of inner voice. Im learning for the first time about anauralia and am intrigued, seems I do to some extend have this. I'm just curious, do you present no inner voice whatsoever or do you have the occasional inner voice in some cases, when for example you attempt to collect some information when getting ready to write down something or in a very stressful situation you need to enumerate some steps to get out of it, etc...

Re: Inner Speech

#99

Post by jvanderbot »

vidarh wrote: post #82
Armisael16 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is so earth shattering to me. I'm completely unable to actually "see" anything when I imagine it, but I think I can visualize in the sense of recalling or imagining how it would look.

Do people actually close their eyes and hallucinate or am I reading way to far into this?

Re: Inner Speech

#100

Post by tacheiordache »

vidarh wrote: post #62
keiferski wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could one "think about what they're going to say" without some level of prior inner speech or conceptualization? It may not be precisely the same as spoken speech, but it would still be a kind of speech.

Why do you assume conceptualization requires verbalization?

I personally have a very hard time thinking out loud but have no problem thinking quietly. I'm for example terrible at explaining something while working on it but could easily explain it afterwards.
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