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Inner Speech

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Re: Inner Speech

#111

Post by endofreach »

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"…

Not sure if it applies to me, i do have an inner voice, but it's way too slow for my thoughts. Never know how to explain it, but even though i am quick with finding the right words, it's so much slower than my thoughts. But i guess that's normal, so then, most people that have an inner voice, still don't use it for their thinking. It comes afterwards, at least that's how it seems to me.

Re: Inner Speech

#112

Post by razerbeans »

jancsika wrote: post #108
razerbeans wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But then how do you do what I'd consider simple things like sanity checks? For example, hooking up jumper cables. I suppose I could hook them up without an inner dialog. But then at any point if I get confused or remember that dangerous things can happen, I can go back and compare against a list in my head of the steps to hook them up. E.g., don't let clamps touch, start with the dead battery, positive first, crank a…

You know, I've never really thought about it. Yeah, I guess I do just remember the feeling and know that it's a step that I've completed. And when I recall the steps that need to be done, it's not really a cohesive spoken thought. It's like impulses of sensations? My brain is just like "Order's important. Red red, black black." without the words.

For really difficult mental tasks, I'll actually talk to myself or write things down so that they are less chaotic since the feelings/impulses in my brain may not line up. Kind of like a buffer filling up.

Now what really bothers my wife is when we talk about how we have conversations with others. I don't necessarily think about what I'm going to say verbatim when I'm talking to someone. It's impulses like I mention above where things kind of "flash" into my brain the moment before I say it. The best way that I can think of it is that it's similar to playing a sport where you have moments to change your trajectory and movement to accomplish what you want. I know thematically what I want to say, but I don't actually build the sentence in my brain.

Hope that helps!

Re: Inner Speech

#113

Post by [deleted] »

noduerme wrote: post #81
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 thin…

[deleted]

Re: Inner Speech

#114

Post by RichardLake »

noduerme wrote: post #81
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 thin…

For myself I can learn a written word without having any idea of how it is pronounced. Growing up there were multiple occasions when I was speaking and mid way through a sentence realize I don't know the pronunciation of the next word I was going to say.

Also I can read text and completely miss rhymes unless the formatting draws attention to it like how poetry is often written with lines split. (More likely to miss rhymes like half and graph where the word endings visually are different.)

Re: Inner Speech

#115

Post by jancsika »

razerbeans wrote: post #112
jancsika wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then how do you do what I'd consider simple things like sanity checks? For example, hooking up jumper cables. I suppose I could hook them up without an inner dialog. But then at any point if I get confused or remember that dangerous things can happen, I can go back and compare against a list in my head of the steps to hook them up. E.g., don't let clamps touch, start with the dead battery, positive first, crank a…

You know, I've never really thought about it. Yeah, I guess I do just remember the feeling and know that it's a step that I've completed. And when I recall the steps that need to be done, it's not really a cohesive spoken thought. It's like impulses of sensations? My brain is just like "Order's important. Red red, black black." without the words. For really difficult mental tasks, I'll actually talk to myself or writ…

> The best way that I can think of it is that it's similar to playing a sport where you have moments to change your trajectory and movement to accomplish what you want.

If I had to speculate I'd say a lot of people have the experience of both this and the inner voice, depending on context.

It doe make me wonder: are people who can't spontaneously "surf" sentences in realtime and instead rely wholly on an inner voice? :)

Edit: I've noticed that reflecting on this kind of stuff can wreak havoc on young musicians. I remember a colleague who learned the Grieg concerto but was having a small number of wrong notes (say, 5% or so) creep into various sections of the piece, seemingly at random. The teacher started to drill down on each section, having the student write down which finger plays what, subdivide tricky rhythms, and so forth.

What was wild was that each time the teacher asked the student to notate the chord at the point where a mistake occurred, this would generate a cascade of more mistakes. She'd essentially been playing mostly by feel without thinking about the harmony at all. The added anxiety about harmony increased her error rate for relying on feel; pretty soon she wasn't able to make it through the piece. They then went back methodically through the entire thing, having her notate each and every harmony and describe how each one relates to the next, which were primary vs. ancillary, and so forth. Only then could she play the entire piece with precision.

So sometimes to get from 95% to 100% you have to go back down to zero!

Re: Inner Speech

#116

Post by kypro »

endofreach wrote: post #111
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"…

Not sure if it applies to me, i do have an inner voice, but it's way too slow for my thoughts. Never know how to explain it, but even though i am quick with finding the right words, it's so much slower than my thoughts. But i guess that's normal, so then, most people that have an inner voice, still don't use it for their thinking. It comes afterwards, at least that's how it seems to me.

That's exactly the same for me.

I use my inner voice when I'm reading or trying to construct sentences, but I don't think in sentences. I have to convert my thoughts to words so I'm an extremely slow and clumsy talker. I thought this was normal to be honest, but others have sworn to me that they think in sentences and I wonder if that's why some people are such brilliant speakers since for some thoughts and speech are linked instead of being two separate processes.

Re: Inner Speech

#117

Post by kajic »

It’s happened to me a few times lately that I’ve heard music playing that was as vivid as a recording. As soon as I became aware of the fact that it was playing in my head and not in reality it stopped. I can’t make it start at will. I’d love to hear of other people’s experiences with this.

Re: Inner Speech

#118

Post by z5h »

earthboundkid wrote: post #106
z5h wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you need an inner-inner voice before your inner voice speaks? To figure out what your inner voice will say before it says it?

I find if I listen closely to my inner voice, it starts going in a circle for exactly this reason. This makes me think maybe the actual order is backwards and the voice comes second, but it feels first because brains are weird.

Right, my point is there is some point at which our "generation" of dialogue transitions from subconscious to conscious. This is true for people with or without inner dialogs.

Re: Inner Speech

#119

Post by davidthewatson »

It's interesting that the paper mentions Andy Clark's work and hallucinations in separate threads but doesn't connect Anil Seth's introduction of controlled hallucinations and Andy Clark's work on that topic:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/25/1032121/brains-c...

I had always conceived of metacognition as genetic, given my own phenomenological experience dating to childhood. It wasn't until a colleague challenged this idea a few years ago at Carnegie Mellon that I'd even considered that metacognition may be taught and learned.

Re: Inner Speech

#120

Post by riversflow »

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…

Ironically, I have trouble imagining being able to think properly with an inner monologue. If I try to plan my words rather than just let them flow, I almost always stumble and become incapable of selecting the proper words.

If I'm reading something very very difficult, like a research paper in a field I'm only just getting my feet wet in, I will actually vocalize what I'm reading to help me figure out what I need to look up. But this is only when I'm confused.

To answer your question further down about sanity checking, I just know what know, so a sanity check involves me verifying that yes, indeed, black is the minus terminal on both batteries and red is the positive terminal on both batteries, that is my visual memory is correct. That said, a lot of people have remarked that I'm pretty deft in my actions. So maybe it's related?

It's hard for me to generalize about my experience as it seems very natural to me and I haven't really had a lot of exposure to others like me, so I don't know what parts are necessarily about me being me, and which are about me not having mental imagery(for lack of a better term). I get the feeling that an innervoice is kinda stressful though? I'm a very relaxed person by nature. The concept of "negative self talk" is completely alien to my brain.

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