top 200 commentsshow all 495

[–]ren5311Neuroscience | Pharmacology | Evolutionary Biology 792 points793 points ago*

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Inner dialogue is produced by generating language and not articulating. The understanding of language takes places in the left temporal lobe (Wernicke's area), while the production of language takes places in conjunction with your left frontal lobe (Broca's area) and motor cortex.

Inner dialogue is distinguished from external speech simply by monitoring external environmental cues, e.g. you see someone talking and know they're the one talking. More interestingly, inner dialogue is distinguished from imagining someone else speaking by self-monitoring, i.e. an awareness you are generating the speech instead of recalling someone else speaking.

This self-monitoring action is more complex. In schizophrenics, this self-monitoring system is thought to be disrupted, resulting in the perception of inner monologue as externally derived - an auditory hallucination of "covert speech".

The study linked above found involvement of the right superior temporal gyrus, the right parahippocampal gyrus and the right cerebellar cortex in flawed self-monitoring in schizophrenic patients prone to auditory hallucinations, but that's only important for the other neuroscience wonks. The interesting part is that the attenuated areas were all on the right side, whereas language is classically thought to be dealt with on the left side - with the notable exception of interpretation of prosody in the right analogue to Wernicke's. What this finding means is yet to be determined.

Now to address your other questions in a less in-depth fashion.

It would be difficult if not impossible to determine if other species have a true inner monologue because we are unable to communicate with them. We do know that similar areas as described above are active in primates, but we can't query them as to their perceptions of events.

The inner monologue is likely to develop on pace with actual speech production, so in the first two years of life.

Finally, the subconscious is not a well-defined term and subsequently not used much in actual neuroscience research.

Edit: Can't seem to embed the link for Wernicke's and Broca's area above, so here they are in ugly long form. TIL about escaping apostrophes. Thanks, trifolium.

[–]Raerth 155 points156 points ago

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Would there be any connection between the inner monologue, and silent reading?

I remember hearing about St. Ambrose, who was noted in AD398 for his ability to read without vocalizing:

When [Ambrose] read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still. Anyone could approach him freely and guests were not commonly announced, so that often, when we came to visit him, we found him reading like this in silence, for he never read aloud.

It's always intrigued me that one educated man would be so shocked by this ability in another.

[–]arquebus_x 116 points117 points ago

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Through this and other contemporary accounts it has long been argued that silent reading was uncommon in the late antique West. Part of the difficulty with silent reading in the past was that punctuation and spacing were not used. As a result, it is argued, reading without auditory cues as to the endings of words, phrases and sentences was very difficult.

Thisisanexamplethatissupposedtoshowthedifficultyofsilentreadingwithoutpunctuationorspaces

If you sound out the text (which would have been more effective in Greek and Latin, which are much more consistent in their orthography), you can read and comprehend the above sentence more quickly. At least that's the theory.

[–]severoon 66 points67 points ago

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there's another theory put forth by julian jaynes in the origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind, in which he advances the notion that humans have only recently developed key components of consciousness that allow us to recognize that our inner monologue is, well, inner.

he argues that we were not fully conscious beings as little as 2000 years ago, and this accounts for our failure to advance with increasing pace until modernity, and the ability to self-reflect led to understanding and controlling one's inner monologue. prior to that, supposedly, people thought their inner monologue was gods talking. (this also accounts for the relatively sudden shift across most of humanity from polytheist religions to monotheist.)

and he has some pretty neat explanations for how we were able to advance as far as we did during our pre-conscious times, establish civilization, write poetry, etc. i don't think i believe the theory as truth, but it is one of the most interesting things i've ever read and highly recommend it.

i may be about to murder the finer points here, but i believe jaynes might say that st. ambrose must have been one of the humans that evolved the last bits of modern consciousness before his contemporaries, allowing him the ability to make use of his inner monologue while leaving others mystified.

btw, if you've ever read neil stephenson, in many of his books he writes characters as he imagines humans would have been pre-conscious according to jaynes' description. in fact, his book the big u is basically on the topic of: what would it look like today if a bunch of university students were pre-conscious?

[–]GeeJo 14 points15 points ago

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What does he propose as the mechanism for this shift in consciousness? If its genetic, how does he account for its spread to isolated populations? Or does he hold that, say, Native American-descended people are still pre-conscious beings? If it's memetic, why are there no writings in any culture anywhere documenting their introduction to this fabulous new concept of inner monologue?

[–]Maxfunky 9 points10 points ago

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The two halves of the brain not being fully connected is the proposed mechanism. You would have had to be born one way or the other. Either you'd see the words as being external (and therefore believe the gods were guiding you), or recognize them as part of yourself. If you got whatever gene makes possible from one parent and not the other, you wouldn't necessarily be able to recognize that one of your parents wasn't as "conscious" as you were. So the shift, in theory, would happen without anyone really realizing it.

It's an interesting, but highly-speculative theory.

[–]23canaries 1 point2 points ago

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unfortunately speculation is sometimes all we have to use to build models of these things and we hope our speculation is rationally informed and can eventually be tested, falsified, or supported as more evidence comes in. It's speculative components do not qualify or disqualify it as a theory, it's simply still unknown or as they say 'the word is still out on Jaynes'.

Interesting note, Daniel Dennett was highly influenced by Julian Jaynes model of consciousness.

[–]dioxholster 0 points1 point ago

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The mind processes the external in various ways but one thing that remained true is how it processed internal thoughts, one could see that in ancient artwork which I think is an indicative sign of inner monologues.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points ago

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what it seems to come down to is a cultural evolution through neuro adaptation. he identifies several environmental factors as a trigger. He gves some e xamples of documentation of this shift. Sorry for briefness on my phone

[–]arquebus_x 33 points34 points ago

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I've read Jaynes, and I found the argument a bit too circular and dependent on the limitations of our ancient sources.

Not Jaynes but similar: there's been this longstanding belief that "romantic love" didn't develop until after the medieval period, because all of the literature we have pretty much treats "love" and marriage as political and economic institutions. Of course, the problem is that all of the extant written sources we have are by (wealthy/powerful) people who have a vested interest in maintaining political and economic ties through marriage. We don't have much of anything preserved from those without power - so we have no idea whether or not romantic love existed for 99% of the population. It probably did - they just didn't write treatises about it.

[–][deleted] 25 points26 points ago

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Wouldn't this go against stories in Ovid's "Metamorphoses" such as Pyramus and Thisbe? Off the top of my head I also remember Dido's unrelenting love for Aeneas (Virgil's Aeneid), although that was caused by the gods purposefully messing with her feelings.

The popularity of both these stories can be inferred from the various adaptations and works on art based on them, so I assume that people could relate to the story of unsuccessful romantic love. This would in turn imply that they experienced something similar themselves.

[–][deleted] 14 points15 points ago

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Romantic love existed in Western antiquity. Read, for instance, Roman comedies (Plautus, Terence), which generally feature a young male lead opposing his family's desires in order to marry the girl he loves. Read erotic elegy (Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid's Amores) where lovers angst over their hard-hearted mistresses. Read the Greek romance novels (Daphnis and Chloe, the Ephesian Tale, etc.) where the boy and the girl endure exciting adventures (kidnappings by pirates are a staple of the genre) and threats to their chastity before being at last reunited. Read epitaphs for beloved wives/husbands... even Plato's Symposium contains paeans to (homosexual) romantic love.

Ancient Greeks and Romans, by and large, didn't believe that romantic love was important in the same sense that the political/economic/social aspects of marriage were important, but that's hardly the same thing.

[–]penguinv 8 points9 points ago

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whether or not romantic love existed for 99% of the population. It probably did - they just didn't write treatises about it.

or what they did write or sing did not survive to be read or heard now.

[–]arquebus_x 2 points3 points ago

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Precisely.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points ago

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It did survive. Read the comedies of Plutarch, read the elegies of Propertius or Tibullus or Ovid's Amores.

[–]un_leche 1 point2 points ago

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Was this theory is a particular book? If so was it a good read?

[–]A5dr3 0 points1 point ago

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Song of Solomon dude. Actually lots of books of the Bible mention or portray characters as having equivalent feelings of being in love.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points ago*

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I'm sorry, but this is wrong.

Jayne dates the 'breakdown' to 4000-3000 years ago, not 2000 years ago. Part of Jaynes' argument relies on the Iliad and the Odyssey demonstrating this shift, the Iliad representing how ancient man was driven by 'external' emotional forces like ate and thumos and phrenes, the (later) Odyssey showing a new, unified conception of emotional drives as internal to the person. So no. The idea of reading silently as an impressive feat in antiquity is true - Julius Caesar was said to have been able to do it, too - but Jaynes' bicameralism isn't linked to it at all.

(As a classicist, I find Jaynes' use of myth to be rubbish. He knows very little about oral tradition. The Iliad is NOT earlier than the Odyssey. And there were other assertions about his use about myth that made me twitch, but I'd have to find and read the book again in order to dissect it properly.)

Edit: therationalparent downthread linked this Jstor article which shows that reading silently was not as special as I had thought. Thank you for the correction. I would still argue that silent reading was impressive to most people, simply because genuine literacy (as we think of it these days) was comparatively rare; but it was apparently a common skill among the learned.

Edit 2: Source for a criticism of Jaynes' use of Greek myth. Wikipedia on Jaynes shows that he dates the shift to 2nd millennium BC.

[–]beermepodcast 6 points7 points ago

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While using classical mythology to support a hypothesis is laden with trouble, he hardly stops there. It's been a while since I read the book, but I seem to remember discussion of language (how it developed, how the brain processes it, the evolution of metaphor, etc.) and older studies of people who had undergone a severing of the corpus callosum (an outdated treatment for epilepsy) and the resulting "two-mindedness" that comes along with it.

I would never state that Jaynes' hypothesis has been proven, but anytime you're dealing with consciousness, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors to be dealt with. And his book is a fascinating read to consider.

[–]severoon 1 point2 points ago

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yes, beermepodcast gets it right with his comment about smoke & mirrors re: consciousness.

and, it's also worth pointing out that jaynes uses a precise definition of consciousness that probably does not accord with most people's notion of what consciousness would have to be in order to manifest many of the characteristics most people attribute to it.

and, also, like i said i may murder the finer points; it's been forever and a day since i read the book myself. however, in response to your note on the timeframe, i do distinctly remember him saying that it was a latent evolutionary change triggered by environmental factors and he suggested there were reasons to think that this shift would have happened over a substantial amount of time (on the scale of human civilization) across different populations.

again i could be wrong...but there's nothing incompatible with his writings to say that this shift toward consciousness would have happened over thousands of years and been present in varying degrees across the spectrum at any given time within even a single population. iirc, doesn't jaynes argue that religious figures such as jesus were among the first to leapfrog their contemporaries in terms of advanced consciousness, allowing them to exploit gullibilities in their followers that no modern human would believe?

if you are willing to suspend disbelief that this shift occurred, it does seem to me quite natural to assume that the early possessors of consciousness would find themselves to be genius manipulators of others, and they would find it quite easy to rise to positions of power.

[–]LaughingMan42 5 points6 points ago

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I think the culture changes are a far more likely explanation than biological changes. Cultural changes are easily observed on this timescale, whereas complex biological changes on this timescale are very rarely observed.

[–][deleted] ago

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[–]ethidium-bromide 2 points3 points ago

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Considering humanity was already fairly populous and spread worldwide 2000 years ago, it would be hard to imagine that everyone in every population suddenly became "fully conscious" at relatively the same time. Sounds like new-age nonsense

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points ago

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I've known a few people that I think might be pre-concious.

[–]penguinv 4 points5 points ago

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And you claim to be fully conscious now?

I dont claim to be so.

[–]pestdantic 1 point2 points ago

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Just to go off the reservation with this, it reminds me of a radiolab podcast about voices. One person being interviewed had the opinion that we gain an inner-monologue by internalizing the voices of others. Some people who have never heard a voice or understood sign language seem to exist in a sort of pre-conscious state. Basically like Helen Keller in the first act of the Miracle Worker. So is every child that has yet to understand language pre-conscious?

[–]dioxholster 1 point2 points ago

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one born deaf person weeks ago said his inner monologues didnt consist of words heard but "feelings" about things. These feelings are substituted with language in our minds I'm guessing. Thats the problem with consciousness, its contextualizes everything the mind is capable of and doesn't exclude any particular ability. But i know a computer cant be conscious though because everything it does is pre-programmed and that restricted will is the only thing keeping it from being fully conscious. And then there is a question of what it means to be sentient.

[–]pestdantic 1 point2 points ago

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Great point. It also reminds me of the story of the dog man in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. This guy had an amazing shroom trip and reported having an extremely heightened sense of smell for weeks afterwards. IIRC he enjoyed the overwhelming sensitivity but it also kept him from functioning normally, being stuck in a world of emotions. Which would make sense since smell elicits more emotion than any other sensation. So I guess there's more than one way to be "pre-conscious".

[–]Hermit_Kidd 0 points1 point ago

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Some ancient Egyptians had this modern conscious imo

[–]lolgooglemebro 26 points27 points ago*

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Not bragging, but curious since your argument seems to rely on this line, "Thisisanexamplethatissupposedtoshowthedifficultyofsilentreadingwithoutpunctuationorspaces" That sentence was actually significantly easier to comprehend, and faster for me to read than usual. I think squishing it together like that ought to be less taxing on one's working memory. My normal reading speed is average/slightly above (according to a speed reading diagnostic in this book I just read, at least).

Did anyone else feel the same about that string of words?

[–]Jitmaster 23 points24 points ago

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I found it harder to read. I usually read each word as a symbolic image unit, not as individual letters. I also usually read without hearing the words in my head, and so can normally read faster than I could read it aloud(or in my head). But, for this jammed together sentence, just after the "Thisisan" section came in and didn't compute, some parser came online and started sounding out the words in my head, while looking for groupings.

[–]InkSquirt 14 points15 points ago

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what? you read without 'an inner voice'? Incredibly interesting. I have never considered this to be an option, and will now practice it. How does it work? Do many others do this?

[–]Somnombulist 34 points35 points ago

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When reading non-fiction I am compelled to maintain the "inner voice". However when reading a fictional account the "inner voice" fades away and transitions to imagery such that I can almost watch the book, so to speak. Typically once I've hit this point in my reading, I lose track of myself and my surroundings, and it usually requires some sort of direct interference to bring me out of the trance.

[–]Puppetteer 11 points12 points ago

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I've always found stories far more interesting when read that way, but I've discovered that many of my friends (who are not fans of books) seem to lack the ability to watch a written story progress in their mind's eye. Is it not a common ability?

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points ago

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For me, It only happens when I read something interesting or for a long time.

For short replies or sentences like this, I just hear an inner voice.

However, when I do read with visual images, for some reason, I have much greater memory of what I saw, but much poorer accuracy on what the book says.

[–]crustinXbeiber 2 points3 points ago

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It's almost harder for me to read really excellent writing as visual images, because I keep getting distracted by the wordplay and stylistic flourishes, does this happen to you to?

[–]Somnombulist 3 points4 points ago

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I've never really spoken with anyone about it, so I can't say for certain, but perhaps this difference in information processing from various mediums, e.g. books, movies, etc, influences a person's tastes.

[–]Puppetteer 2 points3 points ago

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Care to /r/askscience?

[–]GOD_BLESS_THE_USA 6 points7 points ago

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It takes direct interference to bring me out of the trance that is Reddit.

[–]Cyrius 1 point2 points ago

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When reading non-fiction I am compelled to maintain the "inner voice". However when reading a fictional account the "inner voice" fades away and transitions to imagery such that I can almost watch the book, so to speak.

Funny, I go the opposite way. For me the inner voice only really gets going when I read fictional dialogue.

[–]johnbarnshack 11 points12 points ago

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I do both. Reading without the inner voice is much faster, but I find it much more difficult to remember what I've just read if I didn't say it in my head.

[–][deleted] ago

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[–]herrokan 2 points3 points ago

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what do you mean? if you think you kind of "hear" something. you couldnt thiink if you wouldnt know what you think so to speak. when i read fast the "voice" in my head just gets faster no matter how fast i read. i dont really hear a voice like i would hear a real voice but you know what i mean.

[–][deleted] ago

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[–]memearchivingbot 2 points3 points ago

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That's the process that's behind "speed reading." I do this when I'm reading non-fiction. For fiction I'll slow down and subvocalize to get a feel for the rhythm of the prose.

[–]lajy 8 points9 points ago

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Reading with an inner voice is called subvocalization. Suppressing subvocalization is a key part of speed reading, since you brain can register the words much faster than it subvocalize them. I'd recommend giving Spreeder a try if you want to learn to read without an inner voice. Copy and past any text you want into it, and it'll flash the words up one at a time at the speed of your choosing. It's so quick you don't have the opportunity to subvocalize, but I think you'll be surprised at just how easy it is to pick it up and read very quickly (at least, while using the app).

[–]crustinXbeiber 1 point2 points ago

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I kept raising the speed but I couldn't stop myself from sub-vocalizing it. Is there some trick to it?

[–]BluSyn 1 point2 points ago

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This is actually pretty common, but I'm with you in that I can't do it. Apparently it's something you can teach yourself, and thereby read faster, but it becomes harder to learn as you get older. Not having an "inner voice" I think depends on how you learned language, but multi-lingual people seem more inclined not to have a "inner voice". There's been a lot of posts on reddit about this in the past.

Here's a great thread I digged up about this

And here's a thread on AskScience about it

[–]remarkedvial 3 points4 points ago

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Interesting, as per my comment just above, I experienced a very different, if not opposite, effect when reading that sentence. It feels like I did a quicker than normal scan of this string, then immediately saw the sentence as a single thought as opposed to a group of words.

Has there been any research done on different reading methods? That would probably be a difficult field of study, as it would (for the time being) somewhat rely on the subject's own description of their reading method.

[–]Gorillaz_Noodle 2 points3 points ago

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It may not be as difficult as you think. Since they are two different types of reading / comprehension, the methods should differ in relation to which parts of the brain are being used or activated. I am unsure, but it would make sense that someone who is very image oriented when reading will have an increase of activity in their brain that is related to imagery or imagination. On the other hand, someone who is more about the "inner dialogue" would show spikes in the parts of the brain used for speaking/listening, and understanding words. These may not be the exact parts of the brain, but I am very positive that the concept of different brain activities will be present when you compare the differences between these two individuals. After some odd number of brain scans of individuals it shouldn't be hard to recognize who is which kind of reader, and which parts of the brain are used for the different types of reading.

[–]remarkedvial 1 point2 points ago

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Yes, I see what you're saying, if the difference between two reading methods ('imagery-based' vs 'inner-dialog-based' in this scenario) results in using different areas of the brain ('image centre' vs 'language/concept centre' perhaps), distinct brain activity patterns could be observed in those subjects. And with sufficient individual's patterns mapped and cataloged, we could soon determine the reading method of any individual based on their brain activity scan, which could potentially help customize content to compliment an individual's reading method.

[–]drp1103 7 points8 points ago

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Same. I had to change the way I was taking in the information to process that sentence.

[–]arquebus_x 22 points23 points ago

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Yeah, it doesn't really work as well in English. It works a lot better with a highly inflected language with a consistent orthography. (In Greek and Latin you aren't trained to process phoneme chunks of inconsistent size, basically it's consonant-vowel, consonant-vowel, unlike in English. So your language processing isn't suited to instinctively searching for inconsistent chunks.)

Also, to be clear, it's not my argument; it's the general consensus among early medievalists and historians of late antiquity. I'm actually not even convinced that the underlying phenomenon (no silent reading in late antiquity) is true. But that's a bit outside my field (New Testament), so I've not done the heavy lifting.

[–]YoohooCthulhuDrug Development|Neurodegenerative Diseases 3 points4 points ago

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So you're saying that English is already a harder language to recognize words, so we've had to learn to compensate?

[–]perelachaise 1 point2 points ago

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no. english is easier to recognize in this regard because words are visually much more distinct due to the irregularities.

[–][deleted] ago

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[–]Apostropartheid 6 points7 points ago

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Not particularly. The basics of English are similar to French, Spanish and German, relying highly on word order to produce meaning. Additionally, English is genderless. There are parts of English that are difficult, but are not hugely different to European languages (this is a meaningless term so I assume you mean Romance), and stand in contrast to something like Latin or Ancient Greek.

[–][deleted] ago

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[–]Choosing_is_a_sin 3 points4 points ago

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These are all common features of the world's 6000+ languages.

[–]NFunspoiler 1 point2 points ago

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English barely has a subjunctive tense. Spanish has a very extensive subjunctive tense. That right there makes English easier to learn. Not to mention that while English has more irregular verbs, there tend to be less conjugations in English than Romance languages.

[–]Apostropartheid 1 point2 points ago

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Conjugations are normally exceedingly regular—verbs only change in the third person present tense, other than to be. English also only has two moods in common parlance (French has three.) There are a large number of irregular past participles, but many are falling out of use, e.g. -t (learnt is often learned). Vowel shifts can seriously fuck you up, but those too are starting to be phased out, e.g. sped becomes speeded.

Word stress is a common feature of languages. Italian, Spanish and Russian, for example, all have unpredictable stress patterns.

Large vocabulary is difficult, I agree, but English is split down the middle of the two major European families, Romance and Germanic. Synonyms often derive from the word in the other family.

Slang is common to all languages. English slang is actually easier, as only words are replaced and grammar simplified; try using verlan on the fly.

Different possessive pronouns from the same root are nearly universal. For example, compare:

I, me, my, mine je, me, mon/ma/mes, le/la/les mien(ne)(s), moi (disjunctive).

[–]openhood 1 point2 points ago

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I've learned many languages, and English was by far the easiest to learn. I'm always amazed why people think their language is so more complicated.

[–]ThraseaPaetus 1 point2 points ago

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personal experience or findings of a study?

[–]Pocket_Ben 1 point2 points ago

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[–]B0yWonder 8 points9 points ago

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source?

[–]tospik 3 points4 points ago

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Downvotes? FACEPALM

[–]Without_Wit 5 points6 points ago

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Well, to be fair you've read every word in that line just above and can start predicting what the words will start saying.

[–]nitram9 3 points4 points ago

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I felt sort of the same. I've realized that when I'm reading simple conversational English like the english you normally encounter in reddit comments I just skim over it and I understand perfectly. I may only read every 3rd word but I get the idea. If a couple sentences later I realize that something isn't right. Like that there are contradictions in my understanding I will go back and read more carefully. It's like a building sense of dissonance. I don't know what's wrong but I know something is wrong.

That particular sentence was so easy because after reading "This" and "example" I immediately knew what the rest of the sentence was probably going to be. I only had to pick up a few words here and there and I filled in the rest.

Odd phrasing, technical jargon, and stylistic prose or poetry is much more difficult though and I have to read each word carefully. It's also taxing and I can't read for too long before I get fatigued.

Also your sense that it is easier could have been influenced by the expectation of it being hard. arquebus just told you it would be hard so you are primed to expect a lot of difficulty. When you get no difficulty it feels even easier than it feels when you read normally.

[–]ofsomesort 2 points3 points ago

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i found it much easier and faster to read. i tried it on a few full paragraphs and i was impressed by the speed that i could read, until i lost my place.

[–]remarkedvial 1 point2 points ago

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Yes, I was just thinking the same thing, I immediately felt that I read and comprehended that string much faster than the other sentences in that comment. And based on observations from my school days and feedback from others over the years, I also consider myself to have an above average reading speed.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago

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Well, you should also note that all texts in the ancient world were handwritten, usually poorly so, by slave-scribes. These scribes also used abbreviations wherever possible. Medieval texts, for these reasons, are extremely difficult for most people to read; the texts in Ambrose's day were likely similar (by his time the codex (book) had replaced the scroll).

Imagine that line scribbled in a sort of awkward cursive and you might see the problem.

[–]23canaries 0 points1 point ago

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same experience here

[–]kateonthetrain 0 points1 point ago

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To add to that, Japanese and Chinese text has no spaces. I question that argument.

[–]onesnowball 1 point2 points ago

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I read that sentence with no punctuation and spaces and didn't find it difficult. In fact, it was quicker than reading it with pauses (commas, spaces). What does this mean?

[–]iamatfuckingwork 1 point2 points ago

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Maybe I'm weird, but I found your sample that lacked punctuation to be easier to read to read to myself.

[–]penguinv 0 points1 point ago

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Is that actually true, about works being written with no space between? I've never heard of that. The parent poster gives no "proof" and no one I've yet read below questions it.

I question that.

[–]arquebus_x 1 point2 points ago

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It's true. Take a look at some of the examples here.

For example, every New Testament manuscript from before the codex period (i.e., papyrus and scroll copies) lacks spaces and punctuation.

Papyrus and parchment were expensive. You didn't waste space with spaces and punctuation.

[–]arquebus_x 1 point2 points ago

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More examples, from Google images.

[–]TOAO_Cyrus 0 points1 point ago

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Funny I fiend it harder to read that aloud.

[–]therationalparent 27 points28 points ago*

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Wow. That is fascinating!

You've made my day! You're a star!

[EDIT: Dammit. Apparently it's not really true:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jul/29/featuresreviews.guardianreview27
http://www.jstor.org/pss/639598

]

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points ago

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Drat. I believed that story. TYVM for that Jstor article.

[–]dearsomethingCognition|Neuro/Bioinformatics|Statistics 4 points5 points ago

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Would there be any connection between the inner monologue, and silent reading?

Yes. The phonological loop component of Baddeley's working memory model addresses this. In fact, it can be easily disrupted if you have to do 2 phonological tasks. Brooks (Spatial and verbal components in the act of recall. Canadian Journal of Psychology) showed some of this way back in 1968.

[–]sonic-servant 9 points10 points ago

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So, a related question:

I've never had an internal monologue. I just kind of associate things in my head in a chaotic, undefined fashion that works pretty well for me. Growing up, I always thought that "internal monologue" was just a metaphor people used for their internal thought process.

In college I started taking nootropic drugs and discovered that the concept of an internal monologue isn't metaphorical. Specifically, I was taking DMAE. It was bizarre; for the first time in my life I heard a literal voice narrating my thoughts. I found that this helped me to concentrate, but it also limited the kinds of thoughts I could have to the kinds of thoughts that I could quickly articulate. In the end I stopped taking nootropics because they made me boring, uncreative, and frankly, stupid.

So my questions are:

  1. Why might I not have an internal monologue?
  2. Is there any way I can achieve the level of concentration and focus that other people have without the internal monologue, or maintain my creativity with it?

EDIT: As an aside, I'm a submissive in a dominant/submissive relationship, and I find that receiving orders from my master allows me to concentrate very effectively without the internal monologue. I'm not sure what to make of that except that it makes me really happy.

[–]Mattenburg 2 points3 points ago

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I recall hearing about a study that investigated this exact thing. They were focussing on why people are able to read silently along with developing their inner monologue.

The basis was that people who are diagnosed with ADHD are some of the most likely to be missing this "inner voice", along with those suffering from dyslexia.

Try: http://dyslexiadiscovery.com/mindfulness/ for a bit of a read. Moreso based on dyslexia here, but I think it covers what I've mentioned.

[–]sonic-servant 1 point2 points ago

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That's interesting; I've long suspected that I have ADHD, but have never had health insurance that covered mental health stuff.

[–]fooflet 0 points1 point ago

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What do you think if you're alone in the dark with no stimuli? I don't understand, are you like an open book where you say whatever comes to mind without really pondering it first? I certainly have an internal voice(or words that I think, there's really not a defined voice unless I focus on it and give it a chosen accent), but there's rarely a voice when I'm enjoying scenery or watching TV or looking at art. It's most prevalent when reading. Is it the same for you or do you never hear it? Do you visualize words or numbers when you try to count in your head, or do you hear them as I do? I'm really interested in any info you can give me. Also, what is DMAE?

[–]sonic-servant 1 point2 points ago

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What do you think if you're alone in the dark with no stimuli?

All sorts of things; my mind usually wanders to topics I care about. That's not that different from my normal thought patterns, really; I'm not extremely focused as is.

I don't understand, are you like an open book where you say whatever comes to mind without really pondering it first?

No. It's just that the "pondering first" doesn't occur as saying it in my head beforehand. It's more of a few fuzzy associations of concepts. The actual selection of words does somewhat happen on-the-fly, but the concepts which I choose to express are considered.

I certainly have an internal voice(or words that I think, there's really not a defined voice unless I focus on it and give it a chosen accent), but there's rarely a voice when I'm enjoying scenery or watching TV or looking at art. It's most prevalent when reading. Is it the same for you or do you never hear it?

I guess I can force myself to hear an internal monologue with some concentration, but that doesn't produce anything useful as far as I can tell. Without that effort, no, I don't actually get any internal monologue.

The one exception might be when I'm thinking of what to write. My thoughts do eventually coalesce into words, and if I don't have any way to record the words (such as typing them out) I'll kind of "say" them in my head so I can remember them for later.

Do you visualize words or numbers when you try to count in your head, or do you hear them as I do?

Neither. A number is just kind of a concept in my brain. As I count, there's a place in my brain where the current number is stored, and the number there changes as I count.

EDIT: Just to clarify; I know that this isn't how the brain works; this is just a description of my personal qualitative experience when counting.

Also, what is DMAE?

It's a nootropic (mind-enhancing drug). Wikipedia link.. There's also a lot of info like this but beware; many nootropics are steeped in shoddy science.

[–][deleted] ago

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[–][deleted] ago

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[–]Palia_Psychi 3 points4 points ago

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This reminds me of another question: if a person were to mature into adulthood without ever learning a language, would that inner monologue persist? If so, how would it be described? Can complex reasoning, and moreover, reflection exist on an internal level without some sort of speech?

Just as interesting a thought, I think, is how deaf people, those who have been completely deaf since birth, acknowledge their inner voice. After all, they've never heard a word, even if they are literate. There's plenty of room for speculation here, of course, but I have to wonder if anyone's ever thought to test it out (if, indeed, such a test can be produced).

[–]AngryData 0 points1 point ago

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Some of them probably sort of "see" the symbols and signs that represent certain ideas.

However, a number of people do not have an inner monologue. I only have it when I think about it or trying to use it to slow down for complicated subject studying. 98% of the time, even when reading, there is no voice of any kind. I think in ideas and concepts which are indescribable since they have no shape or sound or anything. They just are. Like if someone yells stop do you have to think of a stop sign or visualize it or anything before you just stop? Or do you just "get" the concept. Same goes for stop signs. You just realize the concept of stop. Just it applies to everything for me.

[–]trisight 3 points4 points ago

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Inner dialogue is produced by generating language and not articulating.

Does this also hold true for sound effects that one imagines in their head. A person playing a full orchestra in their heads, for example, is this still generated from the language centers?

[–]Managor 2 points3 points ago

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About that not being able to communicate, I find this intriguing. If it is possible, and propably they are aiming at that, to teach few generations of apes more and more of the sign language. The mother would teach what she knows to her offspring and they would add more words to that. Hopefully this kind of experiment could lead to a "fluent" conversation between humans and apes

Just a bit more info

[–]kaizenallthethings 2 points3 points ago

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I have a hard time believing that "Inner dialogue is distinguished from external speech simply by monitoring external environmental cues, e.g. you see someone talking and know they're the one talking." I have no problem distinguishing between someone I can not see talking (even if I did not previously know that they were there) and my inner dialog. Perhaps there is a feedback mechanism associated with the ears?

[–]penguinv 3 points4 points ago

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I took that quote in a more liberal way than you did. I saw eg as meaning, "Here's one example of an external environmental cue" you could figure out other examples.

I considered hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling as examples of external environmental cues. Our 5 senses are how we get external environmental cues. (Plus temperature but in my experience for that one it's not always clear if it is external or internally generated.)

Perhaps there is a feedback mechanism associated with the ears?

Of course.

[–]Choosing_is_a_sin 1 point2 points ago

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e.g. = for example. I think it should have been clear that you were not intending that as a catch-all.

[–][deleted] 14 points15 points ago

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Couldn't we put censors in dolphins brains, see what readings it gets when it talks, and then keep recording as it swims around by itself to see if you get similar "language" brain readings which could indicate thinking/internal monologue?

[–]ren5311Neuroscience | Pharmacology | Evolutionary Biology 37 points38 points ago*

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Sure, but this work is easier to do in primates, and it's been done. (Sorry for the paywall - /r/scholar might help you out if you really want it.)

They apparently have a default mode network, meaning they might have some sort of introspective process, so it's somewhat reasonable to assume they have a similar inner monologue to ours.

It's just not really possible to definitively verify experiential events without real communication, something we are currently not capable of with primates - or dolphins.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points ago

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Paywall is okay, I have a subscription to science direct. Money is not an issue, but is this study worth someones time to read do you think?

[–]ren5311Neuroscience | Pharmacology | Evolutionary Biology 19 points20 points ago

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Not if you have to pay for it. Read the rather good popular reporting about it here instead.

[–]Internet_Hardman 5 points6 points ago

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Doesn't one have to have a language before inner dialogue? Isn't that what differentiates us humans, the ability to articulate thoughts? Also, which species is considered more intelligent, dolphins or chimps? Genuine question

[–]therationalparent 6 points7 points ago

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Even if they don't speak, dolphins and chimps communicate a lot, and the methods they use are their language.

[–]econleech 1 point2 points ago

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How do you define language? Is any form of communication considered language? Cats and dogs communicate too. When my cat wants food, she stand by her bowl and meows. That's communication, but I wouldn't call it language.

[–]Pyrogenesis 3 points4 points ago

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If "intelligence" is an adaptation to environmental conditions, then a general judgement about more and less intelligence becomes tendentious. Every species has adapted to its circumstances, and there is no general "intelligence" with which we can pass easy judgement on every animal species.

Also, as you can easily test on yourself, not every thought you ever have is verbal. Imagination equally works with, as even the word says, images.

[–]CharlesAnonymousVII 4 points5 points ago

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Intelligence is an organism's individual capacity to adapt to novel situations via abstraction from past experience, most likely rooted in analogical insight. It gives one an ability to create hypothetical, representational mental models which can be conceptually tested and manipulated at negligible cost before decisive external action. It would also give any creature a monumental advantage over strictly instinct-based predators/prey if it learns to actively seek & impose novel environments on other animals. I think.

[–]dearsomethingCognition|Neuro/Bioinformatics|Statistics 4 points5 points ago

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There is not enough knowledge of how dolphin brains work to infer what would be "language" and what would be something else.

[–]taitava 1 point2 points ago

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I'm sorry if this has already been asked, but if inner monologue is linked to language and speech, do hearing impaired individuals have a modified form of this? Or nothing at all? This is a fascinating topic.

[–]Brain_Doc82Neuropsychiatry 5 points6 points ago

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[–]Uncle_Chachi 1 point2 points ago

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Is this the same process by which we hear music in our heads?

[–]PossiblyTrolling 1 point2 points ago

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If you never learn a language, do you still have inner monologue?

[–]sndwsn 0 points1 point ago

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So if inner monologue is an auditory hallucination, would it be possible to train our brain to see hallucinations we chose? Or is that like some completely different concept

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

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Interesting that it is so tied to language. What happens to people who never learn language, is it possible that they don't develop an inner monologue?

[–]Prathmun 0 points1 point ago

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I was speed reading this until I hit parahippocampal gyrus, had to stop for a sec and figure out what the hell I just read.

[–]VulgarityEnsues 0 points1 point ago

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What was the difference between inner dialogue vs monologue? Schizo?

[–]DeadHead13087 0 points1 point ago

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What about "inner-visions." Does this work similar to the inner monologue? What about thinking about taste?

[–]RedMansGr33d 0 points1 point ago

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thanks for the really informative answer. I am actually taking Cognitive Neuroscience right now at Mizzou, really interesting stuff.

[–]Waterrat 0 points1 point ago

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How does the inner dislodge relate to ear worms? Right now I'm "listening" to Men At Work A land Down Under. Would this song be being processed in both hemispheres of my brain as I play it in my head?

[–]cuppincayk 0 points1 point ago

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In accordance with that study, how do I know if my self-monitoring system works the same as others, and the same with my boyfriend? I'm bipolar and he's schizophrenic. I usually have auditory hallucinations while he has visual. I would love to know the thoughts on this, or just how it works in general. The study was kind of hard for me to understand.

[–]brighterside 0 points1 point ago

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To put simply, monologue is the context of language. Language is a consolidated consortium of ideas, symbols, and more importantly, reflections of feelings that can all be communicated outward to other species (yes human to dog, etc).

Without language or the ability to generate language, you're left with internal feelings, desires, and instinct. This by no means implies that animals do not have a consciousness simply because they do not have the ability to generate internal monologue.

[–]swansonite 10 points11 points ago

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I recommend anyone interested in the subject to listen to WNYC's Radiolab podcast regarding language, Words. It's fascinating!

[–]Snackleton 1 point2 points ago

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Came here to recommend the same thing. The most interesting parts for me were about the deaf man who had no concept of language and the deaf children at a school in Nicaragua who invented their own language. Fascinating stuff.

[–]marca17 1 point2 points ago

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I agree: very interesting. It seemed the show implied "no language, no inner monologue."

[–]mvanderl 1 point2 points ago

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One of the most recent episodes, "Killer Empathy" also talks about this in crickets. Great show.

[–]DisreputableRobot 58 points59 points ago*

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OP may be interested in the a controversial theory of Bicameralism, initially proposed by psychologist Julian Jaynes' in his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

To summarize, Jaynes' posits that inner monologue results from one hemisphere of the brain "talking" to the other. The controversial bit is the idea that early humans did not realize that these voices were internal, and actually interpreted said voices as literal communications from other entities. These voices were heard by all early humans, and were dubbed Gods in a sort of mutual cultural agreement among culturally linked groups of people. Later humans gained true consciousness and self-awareness, and the voices faded from a shared phenomenon to only being heard by priests and oracles, and eventually misinterpreted only by mentally disturbed persons.

The book is a bit dated but asks fascinating questions; Daniel Dennett referred to it as "either brilliant or insane" (not quoted verbatim). Jaynes' is particularly interesting when he dissects early literature (early vs. late old testament, the Illiad vs. the Odyssey) for signs of the transition period between God-driven vs. self-determined action. Well worth a read.

edit: spelling typo's. oops.

[–]Pyrogenesis 30 points31 points ago

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"It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between." - Richard Dawkins (not Dennett)

[–]DisreputableRobot 1 point2 points ago

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You're certainly right about the Dawkins quote (I forgot about that one), but I recall a similar statement in a Dennett essay. I could be wrong, it's been a while.

[–]blackberrydoughnuts 1 point2 points ago

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It's funny how wrong Dawkins was. It's definitely not complete rubbish: there are some great insights on consciousness in there. The historical parts are questionable, though.

[–]atomfullereneAnimal Behavior/Marine Biology 7 points8 points ago

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I haven't read that book, but how does he deal with modern day hunter gatherers or the native societies contacted by European settlers? They should have been experiencing this phenomenon too, right where it could be noticed and documented by the people interacting with them.

[–]DisreputableRobot 3 points4 points ago

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Modern-day hunter gatherers are modern people in the physical and cognitive evolutionary sense. Jaynes did not say that the internal voices were a cultural phenomenon, but were heard due to a different cognitive structure -- some combination of cognitive hardware and software -- that changed in modern humans at the dawn of consciousness.

The cultural element came in the interpretation of the voices as Gods, but the voices were artifacts of previous brain structure that has changed in all modern humans, including modern tribal hunter-gatherers.

[–]atomfullereneAnimal Behavior/Marine Biology 4 points5 points ago

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The problem with that idea is that his timeline for this change happening is far after the divergence of different human groups. For instance, new world peoples had been genetically isolated from old world peoples for at least 11000 years, while the Illiad was composed probably around 3000 years ago. Any genetic or even cultural change which shifted in Eurasia recently enough to show up in ancient literature would have happened far too recently to exist in all the far-flung tribes of humanity.

[–]Mordeth 7 points8 points ago

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From another post:

This self-monitoring action is more complex. In schizophrenics, this self-monitoring system is thought to be disrupted, resulting in the perception of inner monologue as externally derived - an auditory hallucination of "covert speech".

According to the bicameralism hypothesis, this mental illness is actually not a disruption but a throwback to how early human minds worked. Very interesting stuff, since it provides the 'missing link' between animal and human minds.

[–]EndEternalSeptember 5 points6 points ago

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Be aware this is cross-pollinating from two theories which are not necessarily accepted by the majority of the relevant academic community. Conclusions are fun to assume, but at the same time implications and assumptions are just that.

[–]eckm 3 points4 points ago

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Came here to post this as well, although he didn't technically mean brain "hemispheres" talking to each other. Just two parts of some kind. Where the respective parts may have been physically located in the brain was something he discussed in the book. But otherwise a good summary, and a VERY interesting read.. whether it's true or not it is a great tool to get you thinking about the nature of consciousness and identity.

[–]23canaries 1 point2 points ago

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great overview but would like to ad that shamanism and indigenous peoples and their practices still carry this belief and have evolved tools with which to heighten the communication between the two hemispheres, or spirits which at the end of the day is just semantics.

[–]hutchins_moustache 2 points3 points ago

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Came here to post this. Thank you! This is a truly fascinating book (I have read it twice) regardless of whether you agree with anything in it or not. And anything that makes Daniel Dennett say that, can't be bad! :)

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago

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You are evidently not a classicist. Jaynes is particularly wrong when he dissects early literature. Most drastically, he does not understand oral tradition, and so does not realize that the Iliad and Odyssey cannot be dated with reference to one another; they are the products of an indefinitely long tradition of storytelling, drawing on characters and themes of (again) indefinite origin, one particular performance of which just happened to be written down. Source.

I cannot speak to Jaynes' use of biology and neurology, but, with reference to Dawkins' comment, his use of mythology is complete rubbish.

[–]fooflet 0 points1 point ago

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Why the hell is this crappy pseudoscience getting so many upvotes? This theory has no evidence behind it, and should be downvoted according to the rules of this subreddit.

[–]brinstar117 6 points7 points ago

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I don't know how useful this will be but I recently listened to this Radiolab - "Words" podcast about a woman who had the language area of her brain wiped out by a stroke and how it changed the way she perceived the world.

Without language there was was no inner monologue. She would experience the immediacy of all the stimuli she was presented. Basically she lived in the moment without assigning any in-depth thoughts or processing it other than having the sensation.

The podcast also covers deaf individuals who spent most of their lives without language because they were raised in an area without the resources to teach them. Later in life they acquired language and explained the differences in thought processes. It was quite fascinating!

[–]utigeim 4 points5 points ago

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I remember when I was a kid discovering my ability to inner monologue. The funny thing is I equated it with speaking. I remember telling my older brother proudly that I could speak with my mouth closed and then he told me to say "Go to the toilet upstairs" and at that exact moment I realized it was only in my head.

[–]hylenium 3 points4 points ago

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I believe chimpanzees may have this ability. I recently read "Next of Kin" by Dr. Roger Fouts, which follows his study of language acquisition in chimps by teaching them sign language and his eventual shift into becoming a chimpanzee rights activist.

One story he tells is of Washoe, the main chimpanzee he worked with, sitting alone in a tree flipping through a fashion magazine and signing to herself things she was seeing (shoe, hat, etc). A human equivalent of this would be a toddler looking through a book and verbally identifying a cat/dog/ball/whatnot that appears.

One of Fouts' graduate students, Mark Bodamer, did [1] two extensive studies on private signing in chimpanzees (p. 111-112). During the experimental observation period, a majority of these signs were referential (about something immediately present) or informative (about something not present). The chimpanzees also made imaginary signs which were sub-categorized using the human child's play categories of animation (treating an object as if it was alive) and substitution (treating an object as if it was something else). Another researcher, Kimberly Williams, observed chimpanzees signing in their sleep.

I don't understand how this could be possible without some sort of internal monologue, however rudimentary, being present.

[–]etiol8 16 points17 points ago

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This is a very interesting, and very difficult question.

Part of the problem with the scenario, however, is the very nature of the word "monologue," which you very tellingly used to describe what goes on with your thoughts. That is, your thoughts are not strictly visual thoughts, or feeling thoughts, or smell thoughts- they are a conglomerate of many senses along with the structure of language that dominates much of the way we thing.

In fact, we've come to see that language is such an important part of the way we think, that even things that we perceive as immutable (an understanding of basic physics, for example) are rooted in the language we use to describe them. It is no coincidence that a child gains a theory of mind at the same time she learns the words to describe it.

So, do animals hear an internal "voice"? Probably not. Almost certainly not. And whether or not they even have a presence of cognition to recognize their own experiences as thoughts at all is a very complicated question. A rabbit probably experiences the world in a very visceral, very "present" way, where there is hardly any difference between its direct experiences as its thoughts.

On the other hand, high level primates probably do have "trains of thought," though we have no idea what the subjective experience of those thoughts is like, and probably never will. Maybe an ape that has been taught sign language develops thoughts conducted through that medium, and as you suggested, an individual living completely outside the world of language might experience the world more like a rabbit. Very difficult to say.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago*

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Thanks

[–]drachekonig 1 point2 points ago

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To give you some more perspective on the "language as thought" aspect of this, here's a copy-paste of my post on a similar question asked awhile back:

In short, while your ears are the receiving organ for sound, those signals just end up in the brain for interpretation. When you think about sounds, you basically use the same process to interpret original content that is being produced in your "inner-voice." There is some disagreement about what the "inner-voice" really is and how that process actually works. A lot of the research done in this area came from linguists and psychologists studying linguistic relativity, or the manner in which the language we speak affects our perception of reality and our thought processes. Some of these argue that our mental language is the same as our spoken language, and that when you hear yourself "think" you hear it in the language that you speak. They would say that your ability to "hear" tones, accents, or any other similar phenomenon in your mind is linked to your memory of spoken language and your mind piecing those items together to create original content. This further ties in with the concept of language as thought in that one widely accepted defining principal of a "language" is the ability for creativity. There are others that believe everyone thinks in some sort of meta-language that is independent of spoken language. Look at studies by Elizabeth Spelke or John Searle. They have attempted to show that even in the absence of a spoken language, individuals are capable of thought. Elizabeth Spelke did studies with infants to determine if they were capable of recognizing differences in objects prior to language acquisition. They would say tones or accents in your mind is being interpreted on their own basis, without being converted into the form of your spoken language. It's a little counter-intuitive, and of course you have people (such as Eric Lenneberg) who say the very act of describing thought processes with language makes them indistinguishable from language, as it is impossible to write in meta-language.

Original thread here

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[–]manwithabadheart 10 points11 points ago

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I wonder. If you teach a dog enough commands, does it begin to form some sort of thought process?

[–]B0yWonder 0 points1 point ago

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sources?

[–]orronzo 2 points3 points ago

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I would like to know if and how this relates to code switching (people who are bilingual will switch mid-sentence) ok this is speech production, but it also happens when formulating thoughts or dreaming (in a foreign language). what i want to say, is that the inner dialogue seems to be switching to a foreign language after a while.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago*

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I'm Bulgarian and I don't remember having an inner monologue in any language other than Bulgarian unless I specifically try to think, write, or compose sentences in English.

[–]stlouisbrowns 2 points3 points ago

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I'm wondering if the lack of understanding on inner monologue was one reason for the emergence of religion. When language began to be articulated as such, and early humans 'heard' this in their heads -- wondering if mistaking it for an outside force might have had something to do with the origins of god concepts.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points ago*

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We don't even know if each of us has an inner monologue.

/r/solipsism

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[–]BlandInDC 1 point2 points ago

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There was a really good episode of the NPR science show "Radio Lab" about a very similar subject. The basic question was "do people 'think' (i.e., have an internal monologue) before acquiring language?" I found it very interesting.

[–]balcerzak 1 point2 points ago

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also. deaf people...

[–]ignignokt6 1 point2 points ago

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Just watched this TED talk by Antonio Damasio where he briefly talks about the types of conscious selves present in other species outside of humans. Really interesting talk in general, too. http://www.ted.com/talks/antonio_damasio_the_quest_to_understand_consciousness.html

[–]eugal 1 point2 points ago

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Do we know anything about people who are born deaf and how they think in terms of a "inner monologue" I am sure they don't think in sign language. Also what about people who are born deaf but due to science get hearing later in life?

[–]CanadiangirlEH 1 point2 points ago

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Of course this is pure speculation on my part, but I would not be surprised in the least to learn that Dolphins/porpoises and many larger primates have inner dialogue. I have long considered both groups to be (if not fully sapient) at least near sapient beings. Considering there have been gorillas taught to use sign language which are capable of both initiating and holding real "conversations" I would argue that yes, there are other species who do possess inner monologue. Sadly though, ths is something that would be near impossible to prove

[–]lenny247 1 point2 points ago

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not exactly a wide consensus on that but I think they do. all animals communicate in one way or another. and thus, I think that same communication would be internal. the complexity of which would be directly proportional to the complexity of their communication. however, this question also implies a self recognition, which humans are widely celebrated as being their exclusive domain. I think however that many animals are self-aware. they may not be able to write books, but at a basic level, they do posses traits. for example, animals teach their young how to hunt, how to live in the wild - that is not instinct.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago*

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To a degree this is an issue on the differentiation of consciousness, how can anyone not accept there were people with consciousness akin to the people of today.

Take the Greek concept of Arete, simply put as personal excellence. It requires striving, assessment of self, perception of others and their intentions (excellence as a personal and comparative process,) understanding environment, discernment...in other words all the cognitive tools that an individual would use today.

[–]poopypaws 1 point2 points ago

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[–]Dirty_Mike 1 point2 points ago

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this is fascinating.

[–]twitchwitches 1 point2 points ago

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I'm really surprised, for some reason I just assumed everyone has an inner monologue, cause I think with words and pictures sometimes, but I think to myself so often that sometimes I lose the moment, so I guess it's a better thing NOT to have an inner monologue.

[–]urbanturtlefarm 2 points3 points ago

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I haven't seen anyone else bring up the work of Julian Jaynes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology) . His theory of Bicameralism is getting more attention as MRI and other brain imaging have proven many of his hypotheses correct. He basically says that not just your inner monolog, but consciousness as you understand it is learned and has evolved with language. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RvTDlS44fE&feature=plcp&context=C38dd502UDOEgsToPDskLeozhO814E74JsD4s3Obf3

You may also enjoy this story about a culture in Australia who continually see themselves in relation to the direction they are facing: http://www.radiolab.org/2011/jan/25/birds-eye-view/

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[–]jimaug87 8 points9 points ago

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Yes, if you are a human. Don't you experience this personally? Or is this dog speaking?

[–]mindaltering 4 points5 points ago

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I don't have an internal monologue and I'm definitely human.

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[–]tendimensions 0 points1 point ago

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If you're really interested in this I'd like to recommend "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Camerial Mind" by Julian Jaynes. It proposes a fantastic theory of the origin of our consciousness that places it much, much later on the evolutionary time line than most people think.

It's completely non-testable, but it's a fascinating theory that isn't all that outlandish.

EDIT: Added the wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Jaynes

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[–]drhu22 0 points1 point ago

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Re: How does the human mind recognize the inner monologue as its own thoughts, and not as external stimuli?

To me the inner dialogue/monologue is a product of our own effort...same as writing or speaking, ie we choose what to think, though on a subtler level.

As to whether other species have that, I think its impossible to know without talking to one.

[–]wsfarrell 0 points1 point ago

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Julian Jaynes, in "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind," speculates that people DID view the internal dialog as coming from external sources until a couple thousand years ago. Great book, wikipedia link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_%28psychology%29

[–]isopropophlex 0 points1 point ago

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Can the mind and her self-monitoring system be fooled, when the exterior source sounds almost similar to the sound of the inner (voice) dialogue)?

Has this ever been tested?

[–]Brindled 0 points1 point ago

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Random fact- (I read through the comments, didn't see this posted already, but sorry if I missed it) I used to work with children on the Autistic Spectrum- and some people with Autism do not have the same type of inner monologue as the majority of the population; which goes some way to explaining the difficulties many people with Autism have with empathy, reasoning, and thinking through a situation. This isn't the original source, but it outlines the same fact- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_121213.html

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[–]ZiM655321 0 points1 point ago

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That point is brought up in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. Early on in the monster's life he's basically a roving animal because he doesn't have any understanding of language. Once he does learn a little about language, he can then show compassion. It was his understanding of language that allowed any real thought. That was the reason for the change in his character from an animal to a man.

[–]Homo_sapiens 0 points1 point ago

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Primarily I think we should ask ourselves how we test for this.

[–]Death_Taco 0 points1 point ago

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What always baffled me is how can the brain can still perceive phonemes, despite those being purely mechanical in production? Because you're not 'hearing' it, but you are still thinking that it's that phoneme.

[–]jeebz_for_hire 0 points1 point ago

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what if the person is born without being able to communicate like Helen Keller. She would have no inner monologue and be stuck in darkness until she learned some form of communicating ?

[–]atheistjubu 0 points1 point ago

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Please. You don't know that other people have an inner monologue. Everyone around you could be a philosophical zombie.

[–]HanoverGimp 0 points1 point ago

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I realize this is ask science, but I've always wondered if cats had this.

[–]SpunkySkunk347 0 points1 point ago

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Isn't the existence of your own internal monologue pretty intuitive, even for an infant? In reality, the inner monologue is only part of a conscious cognition, which exists well before spoken language is known to a child. Are you defining an "inner monologue" as us talking to ourselves in our head? Or any conceptual thought we consciously conceive of? Psychology isn't a pragmatic science; A + B = C logic isn't always going to yield useful/relevant results in pyshcology

[–]Janderson666 0 points1 point ago

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I would look into the worif-saphf hypothesis which says that our extent of our thinking capabilities is determined by our knowledge of language.

[–]Flyingfro 0 points1 point ago

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Not all humans have an inner monologue. I know that I only think in pictures without commentary.

[–]thomaspinklondon 0 points1 point ago

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I'm sorry to not add anything here that you will read in another's voice, or you might. I wanted to comment and add that I read your post in my monotone inner voice. Is this normal to have a monotone inner voice?

[–]ObeselyMorbid 0 points1 point ago

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Seeing as my inner monologue has a lisp, it is generally quite easy to distinguish from the surrounding environment.

[–]brighterside 0 points1 point ago

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To put simply, monologue is the context of language. Language is a consolidated consortium of ideas, symbols, and more importantly, reflections of feelings that can all be communicated outward to other species (yes human to dog, etc).

Without language or the ability to generate language, you're left with internal feelings, desires, and instinct. This by no means implies that animals do not have a consciousness simply because they do not have the ability to generate internal monologue.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

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My dog has inner dialog. I see him arguing with himself if he can get away with a sneak. Check no one looking good, check again. Nope it was not me who got the food from the plate on the coffee table.

[–]HeresABookForYou 0 points1 point ago

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[–]blargerz 0 points1 point ago

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To all those who have asked "How can you not have an inner monologue?" here is an answer: When you are immersed in a video game or a sport, do you talk to yourself in order to play successfully? The answer is probably no - you just act and react, according to the logic that unfolds before your senses. Now just imagine the real world is one big game. That is how people like myself are able to go without an inner monologue. Spoken and written words are not "thoughts", they are things I "use" in order to communicate. Now, if I am trying to solve a real-world problem, I don't reason through it verbally, I imagine in my mind's eye the end goal, and the steps it will take to get there. Or in some situations, I imagine different actions I could take, and what the result would be. I continue these thought-experiments until I come upon the one with the best result. I have a hunch that this ability becomes easier as you get older and have some experience and understanding of the world, so you can have an accurate mental "holodeck" to work in.

[–]boscobilly 0 points1 point ago

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It's called thinking. At what age did you learn to think????