Not everyone has an internal monologue • Hacker News Board

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#31

Post by LukeBMM » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:31 PM UTC

A similar subjective experience just came up recently[1] on HN as an aside in an article posted about Derek Parfitt:

> He attributes [his severely deficient autobiographical memory] to his inability to form mental images. Although he recognizes familiar things when he sees them, he cannot call up images of them afterward in his head: he cannot visualize even so simple an image as a flag; he cannot, when he is away, recall his wife’s face. (This condition is rare but not unheard of; it has been proposed that it is more common in people who think in abstractions.)

That article was from 2011, before the term aphantasia was coined in 2015[2] and (arguably) popularized in 2016[3]. Most folks also assume that everyone uses their visual cortex to process memories while that idea sounds absolutely implausible to some relatively small percentage of the population.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22037240

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001094521...

[3] https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-...

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#32

Post by altacc » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:31 PM UTC

c_o_u_n_t_s wrote: post #11

Similarly, not everyone can visualize things in their mind. Pixar's founder Ed Catmull did a survey of Pixar employees and, interestingly, there wasn't that big of a skew of artists who are able to mentally visualize. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47830256 I wonder if there's an intersection of people who do not have an internal monologue nor a "mind's eye?"

My wife has this. One day we had a similar realisation as the article’s author. It was fascinating to discuss and explained so much about how we went about making choices over anything visual, from clothes to home decor (I tend to be in charge of both for our family as I can visualise).

I use visualisation a lot for work, especially when designing or understanding process flows, so not having that ability seems so alien to me.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#33

Post by hackinthebochs » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:31 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #26

Something I discovered within the past year is that if I know a song fairly well, I can "play it" silently in my head, and be entertained. The experience isn't quite as emotionally resonate as listening with headphones, but it's not so far off either. It's useful when I'm bored. ...can anyone else do this? I actually find it supremely weird.

I'm the same way. I can keep myself pretty occupied just playing through songs in my head.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#34

Post by Eric_WVGG » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:31 PM UTC

1980phipsi wrote: post #12

This reminds me of some other recent articles about topics like aphantasia (no visual imagination) and severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM). People who have these conditions do not realize how different other people think.

I was thinking the same thing. This bit on aphantasia is wonderfully interesting and funny: https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-...

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#35

Post by mhandley » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

c_o_u_n_t_s wrote: post #11

Similarly, not everyone can visualize things in their mind. Pixar's founder Ed Catmull did a survey of Pixar employees and, interestingly, there wasn't that big of a skew of artists who are able to mentally visualize. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47830256 I wonder if there's an intersection of people who do not have an internal monologue nor a "mind's eye?"

I'm a very visual person, but I can't visualize faces at all. I have no problem remembering faces, but I can't visualize them. When I'm fully awake, I can sort of visualize other things, but it's never perfectly clear. But when I've just woken up, I can lucid dream, and then I can consciously visualize really complex 3d structures, and design mechanisms in my head much more easily than I can using CAD software when I'm fully awake. The brain is truly amazing and very odd sometimes.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#36

Post by kls » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #28

I saw this viral tweet and I hoped that was more scientific information to read, because I'm a little confused. I don't see enough information here to even determine which type of person I am. Of course I've always heard of "internal monologue" and of course I think about things using language. But I also don't "hear" anything, and definitely not something that literally sounds like my voice speaking. But if I were t…

I would not say that it is auditory hallucinations as in you don't actually hear the voice in your ears. But you thoughts are in a voice in your head that is distinctly your voice or your identity. At least that is my experience and it sounds like what the author is describing to me.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#37

Post by bryanrasmussen » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #26

Something I discovered within the past year is that if I know a song fairly well, I can "play it" silently in my head, and be entertained. The experience isn't quite as emotionally resonate as listening with headphones, but it's not so far off either. It's useful when I'm bored. ...can anyone else do this? I actually find it supremely weird.

When you say play do you mean like a musician or do you mean like hitting play on a music player, if the latter I can do that, I suppose what would stop people is not a good memory for music.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#38

Post by keiferski » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

I'd posit that the strength of the internal monologue is tied to one's propensity and skill in language. People that think primarily in linguistic terms probably have an easier time forming their thoughts into the structure of language, whereas a person who interprets the world in primarily in visual or spatial terms would see more mental images, maps, or connections.

Unfortunately, we live in a society strongly dominated by language, so the "cultural toolset" for understanding and controlling thoughts is optimized for linguistic thinkers. I often wonder what a society structured around visually-oriented people would look like.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#39

Post by lovegoblin » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:33 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #9

Could internal monologue a vestige of bicameralism? >Bicameralism[Note 1] (the condition of being divided into "two-chambers") is a hypothesis in psychology that argues that the human mind once operated in a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking", and a second part which listens and obeys—a bicameral mind.[0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicame…

From your own link:

> The primary scientific criticism has been that the conclusions drawn by Jaynesv [i.e., bicameralism] had no basis in neuropsychiatric fact.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#40

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

[deleted]