cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/2916897
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The original was posted on /r/science by /u/mvea on 2024-05-15 10:17:06+00:00.
Wait, do people have an actual vocalized inner monologue every time they think?
Apparently. I first learned about this last year when a co-worker told me to listen to my inner voice. I said, " oh yeah, like Sybil or Jiminy cricket?" I thought she was kidding. Then I thought she was crazy. Then 2/3 of my office said they hear it too. People who hear don’t believe that other people don’t, and vice versa. People are always trying to trick me into saying I hear something by asking me how I know the sound of my husband’s voice or recognize a song, or get a song stuck in my head. When I have a song stuck in my head it’s just the urge to sing it and there’s no music. I can recognize actors by their voice sometimes, but I cannot do impressions or accents at all!
you can’t recognize voices without an internal monologue? I see no reason that shouldn’t be a thing people would even consider. Voices are like identifying unique patterns. They’re incredibly easy, and we’re trained to do it from birth. Similar thing for songs, although in that case i think it’s more a sense of auditory “muscle memory” as the auditory experience illicits previously excited paths through the brain, leading to the same experience as last time, which allows you to define it independently.
I can’t look at text without my inner voice reading it to me
I can come up with answers or solutions to problem without it, but it’s there for a lot of stuff.
Sometimes yes, like right now. I can sense myself saying the words I want to type in my head. Its really like a voice talking to you but I can hear what the sentence will sound like if I read it out loud.
Every time?
No.
Easy example; picture an item in your head. Now flip it.
No language necessary or really even applicable.
But to learn that some people never have an inner dialogue…? That sounds so weird.
Some people can’t picture an item in their head, or can barely do so and wouldn’t be able to flip it.
Yeah complete aphantasia is crazy.
The point is that no-one does that sort of thinking with language, as it’s not really applicable.
it’s wack, shits even weirder when you dream.
My dreams often get retconned into the real world, unless my brain immediately determines them to be bullshit. Which is uh, unsettling.
i can imagine textures and tastes and stuff and geometry relatively complex but when i try to imagine colors all i get is a flat color diagram or an empty room with only one colour
I was really confused when you said picture an object then flip it. When people say picture something I always assumed that was a way to say think about the thing. I guess because I can think about things, obviously, but I can’t picture them. Their wouldn’t be a thing for me to flip if someone asked me to picture an object which left me wondering, wtf do you mean flip it.
Picture a teapot. Picture it turning over so you can see the other side. Sort of like that.
guess the upside of it is is that if you see something traumatic you can’t revisualize it?
some things can’t be unseen doesn’t apply for everyone? must be nice
Maybe. One way to process trauma is to re-visit it until it becomes more familiar and less of an extreme experience. Seeing it in your mind may make it more real, but it also means you can just picture a teapot instead if you need to get away from it.
I guess my point is that I can’t picture something in that way. Picturing a green apple vs a red apple. I don’t actually visualize anything. I can think ok it’s a sour apple or sweet apple but I don’t have a visual to modify. The teapot I would just be thinking ok the teapot is upside down, theirs nothing I can visualize that would change. I have tried really hard, especially when I miss loved ones, I wish I could bring about images of them in my mind really badly.
I feel that on the faces. It’s really upsetting.
oh my friend, you have made the most relevant mistake in the book, may i introduce you to aphantasics? People who are incapable of visualizing something in their mind.
It’s hard to describe for me. Cuz I don’t actually “see” anything I try to imagine. If I close my eyes and try to visualize say an image of a desk at a window all I see is darkness. The image exists, I can I guess I’d say “feel” it there and i could even draw it. But I can’t “see” it. Like the part of me that’s making the picture is drawing it on a live stream but the part of me that should be seeing the stream has the monitor off.
Same with the whole internal monologue thing. I don’t “hear” the words in my head or “see” them written out in my imagination but I kinda just “feel” them there. It poses a problem when my mind really gets going because there will be often like half a dozen different distinct thoughts I can feel in there. So I end up having to talk to myself out loud in order to keep from losing whatever thread I’m trying to follow.
I’m convinced that a great part of the people that claim to not have an inner voice are either:
- lying to be interesting
- unaware of their inner voice
- not understanding what ‘inner voice’ means. It’s not exactly like someone is talking to you, right? But it does come close.
I mean I can have an inner dialogue, but normally it goes straight onto the idea level of thinking and I don’t waste resources trying to shape it into words. I can do that, though.
If you’re needing to explain those ideas to other people then it’s useful to expound
The guy in my head is my best friend and the biggest asshole ever.
Some inner voice talking to me all time sounds fucking awful haha
Ikr, it’s wild. I don’t think I could cope with something like that.
Eh, it isn’t all the time for most people, and it isn’t hard to shut down for most people either.
The key is that it isn’t a separate entity, it’s just your own mind using words to ideate. Like, you can see the sky and just enjoy the blue, or you can think about the blue in words, if you have that inner voice. People without that voice still have a way of processing and thinking, it just isn’t in words, it’s more abstract.
The few people I’ve met that don’t think in words do seem to have difficulty in expressing the experience to others though.
As someone with an inner voice, I can’t even imagine how I’d think about abstract concepts without words. Like, how does “I love freedom” or “I wish all people could be free” happen without words? Maybe this is a learning disability of mine, and explains why interpretive dance doesn’t make any sense to me.
Yeah I can’t imagine functioning without an inner voice. Mines constant. I can’t really make any decisions without internal debate and I have to sorta constantly keep track of things I need to this. after work im going to do x this weekend I need to get y and z done. W needs to get done before the end of the month.
I’m the same. My mind is always churning. I’m getting evaluated for ADHD next week.
I still think of all the things i need to do, it just sorta comes in chunks, not words or auditory.
Mines constant. I can’t really make any decisions without internal debate and I have to sorta constantly keep track of things I need to this.
A new perspective from this article on the topic I haven’t heard before is that what you’re describing may not be the “inner voice” being referred to.
after work im going to do x this weekend I need to get y and z done. W needs to get done before the end of the month.
I’m going to assume your native language is English (forgive me, replace with your own native language). When you’re having this internal debate, are your points and counterpoints in actual English language with a sentence structure noun+verb+adjective? This is what I’m reading in the article they say “inner voice” is.
- “I really need to do laundry this weekend or I won’t have any clean socks on Monday”
- “I’m going to play football with my friends. I’m excited to work on my kicking form again.”
- “Have I paid the electric bill? What day does that arrive? How much money do I have in my account?”
Or instead is it abstract concepts stacked on top and next to each other for comparison?
- concept of obligation
- playing out a scenario of the future where you wake up on Monday, open your sock drawer and find it empty
- forecasting a sense of satisfaction from the completed task
- calculation of consequences of not doing the task (again)
- a slight self imposed discomfort to motivate you to complete the things to become comfortable again
According to my read of the article, the first would be the “inner voice”, the second would NOT be. I have the second, not the first. How about you?
no its totally words and sentences. I can’t honestly don’t know what my thoughts are outside of that except for visualizing things and like subconsicous things like hunches. Not sure if its related but im one of those people who if I say something its also whats going through my head and actually if im alone enough I just start verbalizing the internal dialogue. Like when I walk the dog I will talk with her. hmmm weather said no rain but those clouds look like they could rain so maybe I should have brought my rain hat but oh well we should finish up soon enough I don’t think we will go far on this one want to be able to get home quick if I need to…
no its totally words and sentences.
That’s amazing to me! It would be so much extra effort for me to put things in words to think on them first. The only time I do that is when I’m testing how it will sound to someone else. Even then, I’ll build the sentences, and then simulate a person hearing them in concept with what I know of the audience to see how they would receive it, and what concepts they draw from what I say. Then I adjust the words as needed to get the thoughts across to the audience.
I can’t honestly don’t know what my thoughts are outside of that except for visualizing things and like subconsicous things like hunches.
The best metaphor I can think to describe it is assembling a jigsaw puzzle. You don’t need to describe the shape of the piece to be able to find a matching piece it fits into. The shape, size, edge, color, and pattern all inform you of where it will fit. That’s kind of a hunch. This conceptual thinking works similarly. There are “attachment points” to each concept that link them together with other mental abstracted concepts. There are places that don’t fit which let you know the pieces are unrelated.
For me it’s not that I can’t think without words, it’s just that the words are very useful tools for organizing my thoughts. I’ve been doing it all my life though so it doesn’t really require more effort than thinking in concepts. It’s like breathing, it happens automatically but I can stop or control it if I want to. When I stop my inner voice I would describe my thoughts as sort of fuzzy and ephemeral. I would easily forget them or have difficulty expressing them without first putting them into words.
It’s like an instinct. You get the meaning behind the words without the words needing to be there.
Image of someone running in a field, naked
(I don’t know, I’ve got words in my head)
I didn’t think this “not using inner voice” thing applied to me, but the way I read the article maybe it does. If the inner voice is truly a voice using grammatical spoken language it sounds crazy limiting.
As someone with an inner voice, I can’t even imagine how I’d think about abstract concepts without words. Like, how does “I love freedom” or “I wish all people could be free” happen without words?
None of this is in words when I’m thinking about it. I’m putting words here to describe the concepts , thoughts and feelings, of each step but none of it is words when I’m thinking it.
Freedom
- limitless choice
- peace and comfort
- patriotism (to the extreme, ironic terms freedom being used as a method of control)
- anti-freedom = slavery or being controlled
- personal experience with making free choices
- historical learning about situations where they didn’t have freedom
- personal luck in being born in a (mostly) free country
- imagining being born and living in a place without freedom
- fictional examples of lack of freedom, like sci-fi dystopia
- empathy about those that don’t have the same things I do
- sense of justice about equality
- memory of muscles used to make my mouth and larynx say the word “freedom” FREEEEEE — DUUMMM
All of the above only takes a second or two of actual elapsed time.
Words that come out:
“I love freedom. I wish all people could be free”.
Interpretive dance is about expressing feelings without words. Mimes convey a ton of meaning without words. Both use motion and body language in ways that not everyone is familiar with, kind of like speaking a language. Other things people do physically, like shaking hands, bowing, and hand gestures have regional meanings like verbal language does.
Non-verbal communication can be hard, but then again speaking different verbal languages is a barrier too.
I don’t think cognitive processing without words is necessarily more abstract.
Arguably if you’re processing concepts such as relative geographical location or how to cook a steak, spatial processing is at far less of a remove than converting it all over to words/symbols.
If it’s a different person than you, then you have a different issue ;-).
It’s not “some voice” talking “to you”, it really just feels like your thoughts are words, if they’re “word adjacent thoughts”.
Like, thinking about how to phrase that first part, it felt like I was reciting the words I was thinking of typing, not like someone else was saying them to me.
I have a non-verbal inner voice which gives meta-commentary on my verbal inner voice. If I want to think about what I’m thinking, that’s what is going on.
Oh, the non-verbal one prob does that thing where they look directly into the camera all disappointed & defeated.
It’s voices all the way down!
I have several voices in my head and they never shut the fuck up! 😩
It always confused me when people ask me in what language I think in (in response to me speaking multiple languages and being good at none). That always sounded akin to asking me if the tuna sandwich I’m holding already has its bachelor’s degree.
I do wish I could shut up my inner voice a bit more often, especially when I go to sleep.
I’m almost the exact opposite. I hear everything when I think. I don’t picture 99.9% of my thoughts. I think in sounds. Not all thoughts are languages, but all thoughts are sounds. Even the very very few I have pictured. The thoughts in languages are numerous at a time and constant, as though forever lightning in bottle. I love it. It sounds kind of like the matrix looks.
are you capable of visualizing things? some time ago i learned that most people apparently can literally see things they picture in their head, which is something i’m only barely capable of doing if i close my eyes and relax.
Like i can summon the image of a basic shape and make it rotate at a consistent speed, that’s it. But then when i’m extremely relaxed and almost about to fall asleep, or when i’m dreaming, i literally just see my imagination as if i’m looking at the real world.
However what i can do is “visualize” extremely well with the sense of proprioception (the thing that lets you know where your hands are in relation to the rest of your body), so i can rotate objects in my headspace and walk through physical spaces. I can’t see anything in there, but i’m fully aware of the shape of things and i simply remember what colour things are.
The best I can describe it is almost always no, I hear spaces, objects, colors, etc. I can think on all my senses pretty easily except vision. I world make in ‘sound’ and awareness. I don’t explain it well, and I do have pretty good spacial and situational awareness. I just don’t think in vision.
A great ‘reset button’ for me is to be in a small room that is totally as dark as I can get it. Can’t see my hand in front of my face after 45min dark. After a while in that space my mind will make up slashes of color. It feels like my brain running a test pattern for my eyes.
How fo they read silently to themselves? 🤔
It’s like I just “know” the text. It’s just in there with no intermediary.
How fo they read silently to themselves? 🤔
The same way as listening to someone speak. There’s a thread of consciousness that takes in visual data and is translating the written word into a string of syntactical concepts that is then processed analytically.
For those of you lacking caffeine today:
Translated: Yo’ brain be doing a figure out.
I was really surprised when I found out that people imagined voices when reading. Wouldn’t they be sped up voices? People read faster than speech. It’s so confusing…
I think the inner monologue is more there to “support” the processing of information rather than being filtered through it entirely.
How do you read silently to yourself? Seems like it would be harder and more noisy if you have to hear the whole thing.
I mean, not really. It’s just words in my head.
What I’m getting from this thread is that almost everyone thinks their own cognitive process is easier and less annoying.
Which makes sense, because thinking is one of those things where people naturally just do it the most efficient way for their own neural structures.
Direct-to-video
Try thinking some sentences (like a song lyrics) while holding your lips and tongue completely still, I mean not moving them even a tiny bit.
Is this supposed to be difficult?
Well it’s supposed to be impossible.
Easy, don’t know what to tell you
Ya… I just sang most Hurt in my inner voice with our moving my lips or tongue. 🤷
My inner monologue is an asshole that literally never shuts up unless I’m asleep. If I’m not actively thinking about something and conversing with him or keeping him otherwise distracted, he’s singing a snippet of the last catchy song he heard, over and over, until a new one takes its place. Sometimes it’s the same song for days on end.
That’s awesome. Mine just criticizes me over and over and over and over and over again. I’m working on our relationship.
I wish mine would shut up every once in awhile…
With my aphantasia it’s not that it’s all quiet in there, unfortunately you still get the carousel of regrets/self criticism etc, but it’s a carousel of emotions with no narrator if that makes sense
I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down.
TIL some people have an inner voice. What is for you folks, like imaginary sounds?
Do you remember the last time you were talking to someone for more than a couple minutes? Maybe they were explaining something to you, or telling you a story. You might try to remember what they said later - you can’t hear it, but your brain kind of recreates the sensation of having been spoken to even though your ears aren’t receiving those sounds.
That’s what having an inner voice is like (to me, anyway) - it’s remembering a conversation that you never actually had.
My inner voice is my voice as I hear it, and is more obviously there when I’m contemplative or reflective on ideas and concepts, but it doesn’t seem to actively dictate or narrate most of my actions as I go through the day, except perhaps in anxiety or adrenaline peaking situations. It does seem more likely to flip to the forefront when there’s an ‘emergency’ sort of moment to help stay calm and rational where others may panic. I do have some ‘imagery’ thoughts but only when I’m on more of an autopilot with an activity.
Interestingly, I can have very vivid and detailed dreams filled with unique imagery and events that can seem very real and my inner voice kicks on sometimes during dreams, and I recognize it as a dream. I have at times been able to influence the direction of a dream that my subconscious usually seems to be running. These dreams can be expansive, I’m talking deep backstory, knowing things and languages I do not know, knowing details about history or science or math that I do not know, and having a strange hyper awareness of existence around me that I do not have when awake. The only really ‘scary’ dreams I’ve had since I was a kid are ones where I can’t find my kids, or where my dad is still alive and shows back up at home like he was just living somewhere else for a while (and it’s not so much scary as just hyper-confusing and stressful). The dad dreams are also some of the best dreams to have that inner voice of awareness happen.
An asshole mostly, but that’s another issue. Helps you think through problems because you think about it before doing it. When I read fiction I try to imagine other voices. I read a lot when I was younger.
It’s just a voice inside your head that says what you’re thinking. Like when I’m typing this out it says the words as I type them or as I think ahead as to what to type.
What does it do when you’re not actively thinking about text or conversation. Is it still verbal then?
Yeah it’s constantly saying shit, a lot of the time its negative and I can’t get it to shut the fuck up.
Mines pretty positive. I tell myself how awesome I am a lot when I accomplish something. But I am pretty full of myself. Usually when it’s being snarky it’s about annoying situations or people.
There are times that it is quiet. If I’m thinking about music or something visual then my inner voice isn’t saying much. If I’m watching tv or listening to something it’s quiet, unless I think of something I have to do, like “fuck I’ve gotta send that email”. It’s generally pretty quiet if I’m doing something like drawing, but I may make little comments to myself in my head like “oh I need some more stuff over here” or something like that. If I meditate, I can keep it mostly quiet.
