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:
I think for those of us who don't have an inner voice, section "3.2 The Semantic Content View" seems to be a somewhat match, but it also says
> Gauker’s style of pure semantic content view is not widely endorsed. This may be because it clashes with the widespread view that inner speech has a sensory character similar to that of hearing speech.
So I wonder if the people that wrote this article are unable to fathom that people without an inner voice exist?
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.]
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?
> So I wonder if the people that wrote this article are unable to fathom that people without an inner voice exist?
I asked myself the same. There was a famous Reddit thread a couple years ago from a person who recently learned they did not have an inner voice, which made myself realize I also don't have one. I don't have the link saved and there seem to be a couple of such posts, but this one was pretty impactful in my bubble.
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
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...
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.
Is inner voice the same thing as inner speech? I’m interpreting “inner voice” to be a kind of pseudo-personality similar to what people mean by conscience, while inner speech is simply the mental version of speech.
I can understand someone not having an inner voice, but I can’t see how writing is possible without inner speech. Otherwise, how can you have thoughts prior to writing them down?
Also note that the article is titled inner speech, not inner voice.
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?
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" <In your mind> 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 like crickets" in my mind but I have no conception of what it means to "shout" or "whisper" this in my mind and the idea that there is tone or pitch to the representation is meaningless to me.
I can think in words so that I can prepare to write something (like this) but there is no audio. I'd say it's more like a stream of words on a screen except that there is no screen, it feels more like a buffer. The experience is the same as reading to me, no audio, just a stream of words.
My partner says she hears her own voice in her head and it's quite critical, prompting her to action. I feel motivation to do things but there is no voice.
Can someone report on their experience with the crickets experiment above, do you hear a voice, can you change its volume or tone?
I'm pretty sure I have inner voice since i'm often occupied by it. But no, I won't mistake it for an actual sound. The way i take it is that it's very much like an LLM generated text. The mind just 'saying stuffs' for the sake of saying them, without much goal directed purpose. I have it but it's not really useful. Like an LLM, it can appear useful but not really. It's when I apply deliberateness to it that it becomes useful. But if i'm deliberate, i suppose that's when it would be just like how you do it.
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 language is not a stretch.
What is hard to conceive of is thought, especially intricate reasoning, without internal dialogue.
Hard to conceive, but not hard to believe. We all do lots of non-dialogue thinking. The evidence of this is everywhere. We come to conclusions, find answers to questions without "verbal" reasoning all the time.
Say you've been building software. You're considering changing something. As soon as its suggested, you realize a whole list of implications. User implications. Server implications. Testing process X will have Y issue. Advisor A will probably advise B. You didn't verbally reason your way to all these conclusions... yet they exist.
That said... all this stuff is kinda "subconscious." You don't know where these reasoned conclusions came from. It feels like a "from the muse" thing.
If I am consciously trying to reason... I'm most (only?) conscious of my verbal reasoning.
Yes. This stuff is hard to pin down, but I’d put the most common understanding in vaguely Western culture as:
1. Most people experience something similar to imagining themselves talk much of the time.
2. Most people do not hear voices, as in hearing a voice that you could easily mistake as coming into your awareness through your ears perceiving physical sound.
Your experience sounds like the “default”, for lack of a better term.
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.
After keeping track for a while, my conclusion as regards my inner voice is that it's an artifact of "paying too much attention" to what's going on in my mind. If I'm in a flow state I have no inner voice. If I'm overly bored, or nervous, or have some other reason to be actively and consciously paying attention to the decisions I'm making, I have a very clear inner voice. It's an artifact of recasting subconscious thought into conscious terms.
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 an old radio inbetween stations (= chaotic).
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.
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.
I don't have an internal dialogue, but I do have imaginary conversations and I compose blog posts, thread comments (like this one) and emails in my head quite a lot.
But speaking to myself as a separate voice? It only happens when I'm high. Really. I only discovered that a few years ago when marijuana became legal in California. I was worried at first that I was having some sort of mental break, because I'm really not used to having two separate voices like that talking to each other. Then I looked it up and realized that many (most?) people have some sort of inner dialogue. Thank goodness. I truly thought I was losing my mind. I wonder what it is about THC which causes that effect in my brain? Also, I don't drink - I wonder if many people have a voice because they're commonly imbibing, even a little.
I would guess my lack of inner voice is why I tend to blurt out what I'm thinking way more than other people. And I'm not one to engage in conversations in a contemplative way. I realize now that many people I've talked to who seem like they're speaking carefully are actually having a whole other voice in their head making observations, etc.
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.
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:
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.
which makes sense, because this Anil Seth guy sounds really aloof and seems to have no problem making grandiose statements. Reads like a tabloid that's desperately trying to keep your attention by saying big things.
> Primarily though, most completely deaf people think in sign language. Similar to how an “inner voice” of a hearing person is experienced in one's own voice, a completely deaf person sees or, more aptly, feels themselves signing in their head as they “talk” in their heads.
The question is: is inner voice just some sort of echo or a necessary part of thought.
It's interesting to me how all of the comments are about the title, but nothing (absolutely nothing) about the actual post linked; which is fair, plato stanford articles are dense philosophical essays, not really suited for the layperson.
Sometimes called manas in buddhism. The discursive mind. Its incredible to me in the middle of all this mental unease nobody is talking about this stuff.
[+] [-] politelemon|2 years ago|reply
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" seems to be a somewhat match, but it also says
> Gauker’s style of pure semantic content view is not widely endorsed. This may be because it clashes with the widespread view that inner speech has a sensory character similar to that of hearing speech.
So I wonder if the people that wrote this article are unable to fathom that people without an inner voice exist?
[+] [-] noduerme|2 years ago|reply
[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.]
[+] [-] prossercj|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cl3misch|2 years ago|reply
I asked myself the same. There was a famous Reddit thread a couple years ago from a person who recently learned they did not have an inner voice, which made myself realize I also don't have one. I don't have the link saved and there seem to be a couple of such posts, but this one was pretty impactful in my bubble.
[+] [-] candlemas|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raducu|2 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] tacheiordache|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] endofreach|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keiferski|2 years ago|reply
I can understand someone not having an inner voice, but I can’t see how writing is possible without inner speech. Otherwise, how can you have thoughts prior to writing them down?
Also note that the article is titled inner speech, not inner voice.
[+] [-] drcongo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neoberg|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sparks1970|2 years ago|reply
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" <In your mind> 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 like crickets" in my mind but I have no conception of what it means to "shout" or "whisper" this in my mind and the idea that there is tone or pitch to the representation is meaningless to me.
I can think in words so that I can prepare to write something (like this) but there is no audio. I'd say it's more like a stream of words on a screen except that there is no screen, it feels more like a buffer. The experience is the same as reading to me, no audio, just a stream of words.
My partner says she hears her own voice in her head and it's quite critical, prompting her to action. I feel motivation to do things but there is no voice.
Can someone report on their experience with the crickets experiment above, do you hear a voice, can you change its volume or tone?
[+] [-] justanotherjoe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netcan|2 years ago|reply
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 language is not a stretch.
What is hard to conceive of is thought, especially intricate reasoning, without internal dialogue.
Hard to conceive, but not hard to believe. We all do lots of non-dialogue thinking. The evidence of this is everywhere. We come to conclusions, find answers to questions without "verbal" reasoning all the time.
Say you've been building software. You're considering changing something. As soon as its suggested, you realize a whole list of implications. User implications. Server implications. Testing process X will have Y issue. Advisor A will probably advise B. You didn't verbally reason your way to all these conclusions... yet they exist.
That said... all this stuff is kinda "subconscious." You don't know where these reasoned conclusions came from. It feels like a "from the muse" thing.
If I am consciously trying to reason... I'm most (only?) conscious of my verbal reasoning.
[+] [-] travisjungroth|2 years ago|reply
1. Most people experience something similar to imagining themselves talk much of the time.
2. Most people do not hear voices, as in hearing a voice that you could easily mistake as coming into your awareness through your ears perceiving physical sound.
Your experience sounds like the “default”, for lack of a better term.
[+] [-] vidarh|2 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] taopai|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] causi|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] shunyaekam|2 years ago|reply
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 an old radio inbetween stations (= chaotic).
[+] [-] bsenftner|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _tom_|2 years ago|reply
It's clear to me that the main ideas come non-verbally first, and then I translate into words.
[+] [-] vidarh|2 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] taopai|2 years ago|reply
Like talking more energetically and happy or using your favorite voice actor? It's pretty awesome.
If you have good imaginary you can combine it with epic music and a hall full of people cheering.
I found it in this small free epub, just 5 pages. I can't find it right now, but here it is in html.
https://www.bookfrom.net/jason-fladlien/589457-how_to_elimin...
[+] [-] russellbeattie|2 years ago|reply
But speaking to myself as a separate voice? It only happens when I'm high. Really. I only discovered that a few years ago when marijuana became legal in California. I was worried at first that I was having some sort of mental break, because I'm really not used to having two separate voices like that talking to each other. Then I looked it up and realized that many (most?) people have some sort of inner dialogue. Thank goodness. I truly thought I was losing my mind. I wonder what it is about THC which causes that effect in my brain? Also, I don't drink - I wonder if many people have a voice because they're commonly imbibing, even a little.
I would guess my lack of inner voice is why I tend to blurt out what I'm thinking way more than other people. And I'm not one to engage in conversations in a contemplative way. I realize now that many people I've talked to who seem like they're speaking carefully are actually having a whole other voice in their head making observations, etc.
[+] [-] vanjajaja1|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kajic|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidthewatson|2 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] SuperHeavy256|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jiggawatts|2 years ago|reply
Like learning to meditate, it’s possible to learn to be anauralic at will.
I started practicing while going on long walks, trying to think about the things I was seeing without mentally discussing it with my inner voice.
At first it was extremely difficult, but I now do it sometimes without even trying.
Speaking of “alternate modalities of thought”, a while ago I made a comment here on HN that I’ve had “dreams in C++”.
As in, I wasn’t thinking about programming in English, the language of my thoughts were C++!
It was one of the freakiest things that had ever happened to me.
I liken it to how if you play a game like Tetris too much, you start “seeing” blocks moving even if you stop playing and go outside.
[+] [-] feverzsj|2 years ago|reply
The question is: is inner voice just some sort of echo or a necessary part of thought.
[+] [-] riffic|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GeoAtreides|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omani|2 years ago|reply
if you read a comment saying it has no inner voice, remember...
GPT is active on HN, too. ;)
[+] [-] SuperHeavy256|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asimovfan|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 5-|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6R1M0R4CL3|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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