Thinking - Internal Monologue or lack of one
Discussion
Something popped up on my Twitter feed recently that sort of blew my mind, and in almost 59 years of being alive, I had never heard about before.
There are people who don't have that inner speech in their head and cannot comprehend those who think in words, they tend to to think in pictures or something.
I mean we all read comics when we were young and knew the difference between speech bubbles and think bubbles, but to some people, that think bubble is an alien concept. I mean, wtf?
This lead me to read up a bit more about this whole thing I'd never heard of before and it's something I still can't get my head around as it's more common than I imagined.
A Youtube clip here shows what I mean and how equally incredulous the author of it is too.
Anybody on here similar to the lady in the clip?
There are people who don't have that inner speech in their head and cannot comprehend those who think in words, they tend to to think in pictures or something.
I mean we all read comics when we were young and knew the difference between speech bubbles and think bubbles, but to some people, that think bubble is an alien concept. I mean, wtf?
This lead me to read up a bit more about this whole thing I'd never heard of before and it's something I still can't get my head around as it's more common than I imagined.
A Youtube clip here shows what I mean and how equally incredulous the author of it is too.
Anybody on here similar to the lady in the clip?
I don't have an inner monologue (judging by how people with one describe it.)
My brain and my imagination never stops - it would often be nice if it did - but it's predominantly in the form of images, concepts and feelings.
When I'm reading a book, I 'hear' the dialogue in my head, as well as 'seeing' the scene being portrayed. I can have imaginary conversations in my head (like if I'm practicing for a briefing or a meeting) or recall ones from memory. I can - nearly always do - have some sort of music going on in my head. If I mentally focus on it I 'see' (in my mind's eye) the sheet music for it, or if not that a sort of abstract visualisation of the pitch and rhythm (a bit like those old WinAmp skins from the 2000s...)
But by default I do not have what people with an inner monologue report, which is a voice (or an internal version of their own voice) formulating thoughts and giving a runnjng commentary on activity in full sentences. To me that sounds exhausting and very slow, since as far as I'm aware my thoughts just spring as formed concepts.
This has come up at work (where the split was pretty much 50/50 between those saying they did have an inner monologue and those who didn't).
Someone in my team who said she had the monologue said that if, say, she was getting hungry and was deciding what to have for lunch, her internal voice literally speaks: "You're hungry, aren't you? It'll be lunch soon. Why don't you go to the Greggs down the road? But that'd be the third time this week and you said you're cutting down on that. You really should have brought those leftovers from home, shouldn't you?"
For me it would be a silent 'cloud' of images and feelings. An awareness that I'm hungry (but no discrete thought), a sequence of images on a mental map of places that served food nearby, a rapid sideshow of memories or images from Greggs and the food they serve, then a recall of the feeling and decision that I was going to stop going to Greggs so much, then an image of the leftovers in the fridge back home. All in a matter of seconds, at most.
The best way I can try and describe my 'brain space' is it's like working on a computer with two monitors while wearing headphones. One monitor is dealing with the primary work at hand (all the inputs and outputs too and from the world) and on another are loads of 'tabs' open conceptualising and recalling other stuff as images, while the headphones provide recalled or imagined audio. Both are going on continuously and in parallel, and I can flick my mental focus between the two at will.
But I never, and never have, structured my thoughts in full inner-voiced sentences. When I balls up something I don't get scolded by a voice saying "Well, Chevrons, you really f
ked that up, didn't you. Why did you do that?" I just feel the embarrassment, stress, fear whatever and my mind visually generates a reel of the alternatives I should have done and the consequences of my balls-up.
And yes, for the OP, when I was young I always took thought bubbles in cartoons and comics, and voice overs of characters' thoughts on TV and film, as a narrative convenience forced by the medium. It wasn’t until my late teens that I realised that about half the people around me apparently process things like that.
Edit:
But in the normal course of things, if my wife were to ask me "do you want to go to the beach at Hunstanton or Rutland Water this weekend?" (to take a recent example), I don't hear my brain verbally chewing this over or weighing it up in a literal "Well, Rutland Water is closer and there'll be more shade because you burn easily, but the parking's a nightmare. Hunstanton will have traffic jams but will be less crowded once you're there and there's that cafe that does the great cheesy chips..." sense.
It's a flurry of images - both recalled memories and conjectured ones of what I imagine the situation will be - and feelings (sunburn, sea breezes, shade, cheesy chips) that all coalesce into a preference. But there's no auditory component and it's not structured in any way like talking.
My brain and my imagination never stops - it would often be nice if it did - but it's predominantly in the form of images, concepts and feelings.
When I'm reading a book, I 'hear' the dialogue in my head, as well as 'seeing' the scene being portrayed. I can have imaginary conversations in my head (like if I'm practicing for a briefing or a meeting) or recall ones from memory. I can - nearly always do - have some sort of music going on in my head. If I mentally focus on it I 'see' (in my mind's eye) the sheet music for it, or if not that a sort of abstract visualisation of the pitch and rhythm (a bit like those old WinAmp skins from the 2000s...)
But by default I do not have what people with an inner monologue report, which is a voice (or an internal version of their own voice) formulating thoughts and giving a runnjng commentary on activity in full sentences. To me that sounds exhausting and very slow, since as far as I'm aware my thoughts just spring as formed concepts.
This has come up at work (where the split was pretty much 50/50 between those saying they did have an inner monologue and those who didn't).
Someone in my team who said she had the monologue said that if, say, she was getting hungry and was deciding what to have for lunch, her internal voice literally speaks: "You're hungry, aren't you? It'll be lunch soon. Why don't you go to the Greggs down the road? But that'd be the third time this week and you said you're cutting down on that. You really should have brought those leftovers from home, shouldn't you?"
For me it would be a silent 'cloud' of images and feelings. An awareness that I'm hungry (but no discrete thought), a sequence of images on a mental map of places that served food nearby, a rapid sideshow of memories or images from Greggs and the food they serve, then a recall of the feeling and decision that I was going to stop going to Greggs so much, then an image of the leftovers in the fridge back home. All in a matter of seconds, at most.
The best way I can try and describe my 'brain space' is it's like working on a computer with two monitors while wearing headphones. One monitor is dealing with the primary work at hand (all the inputs and outputs too and from the world) and on another are loads of 'tabs' open conceptualising and recalling other stuff as images, while the headphones provide recalled or imagined audio. Both are going on continuously and in parallel, and I can flick my mental focus between the two at will.
But I never, and never have, structured my thoughts in full inner-voiced sentences. When I balls up something I don't get scolded by a voice saying "Well, Chevrons, you really f
ked that up, didn't you. Why did you do that?" I just feel the embarrassment, stress, fear whatever and my mind visually generates a reel of the alternatives I should have done and the consequences of my balls-up. And yes, for the OP, when I was young I always took thought bubbles in cartoons and comics, and voice overs of characters' thoughts on TV and film, as a narrative convenience forced by the medium. It wasn’t until my late teens that I realised that about half the people around me apparently process things like that.
Edit:
vixen1700 said:
They think but by not using words, so how do you weigh something up in your head for example? Without 'conversation'.
If I'm anticipating an important or awkward conversation or discussion, I can 'switch on' my inner talking and imagine/practise it.But in the normal course of things, if my wife were to ask me "do you want to go to the beach at Hunstanton or Rutland Water this weekend?" (to take a recent example), I don't hear my brain verbally chewing this over or weighing it up in a literal "Well, Rutland Water is closer and there'll be more shade because you burn easily, but the parking's a nightmare. Hunstanton will have traffic jams but will be less crowded once you're there and there's that cafe that does the great cheesy chips..." sense.
It's a flurry of images - both recalled memories and conjectured ones of what I imagine the situation will be - and feelings (sunburn, sea breezes, shade, cheesy chips) that all coalesce into a preference. But there's no auditory component and it's not structured in any way like talking.
Edited by 2xChevrons on Friday 15th August 09:57
We are all born with the capacity for language, but do not start using it for some two years, and then very crudely. It takes several years to achieve a moderately sophisticated command of language.
Clearly we are thinking, though, for all this time.
Thought comes first, and is non verbal. The words come secondarily and are a means of cementing moments of thought in time, or communicating them to another person. Of course, if totting up a long line of numbers I will probably say the sums in my head, but this is not really thought, but a way of using the brain in a machine like manner.
By the time the words come the thoughts have already been and gone. If you are thinking in words then all you are doing is manipulating certain preformed concepts, as if fitting in shapes in a game of Tetris.
Clearly we are thinking, though, for all this time.
Thought comes first, and is non verbal. The words come secondarily and are a means of cementing moments of thought in time, or communicating them to another person. Of course, if totting up a long line of numbers I will probably say the sums in my head, but this is not really thought, but a way of using the brain in a machine like manner.
By the time the words come the thoughts have already been and gone. If you are thinking in words then all you are doing is manipulating certain preformed concepts, as if fitting in shapes in a game of Tetris.
2xChevrons said:
<snip> Interesting stuff.
I'm going through your post and trying to grasp it further. Your thought about thinking in words being slower is interesting, so on that for example: if I'm watching The Chase and answering questions quickly, I hear and say the answer in my head before saying it out loud to my mrs. Do you hear or say the word in your head or do you see or feel it?
A 50/50 split of people with or without is surprising (to me anyway). Wow! I literally had no idea.
The Greggs thing is interesting, the lack of words is a hard one to imagine. As is this:
But I never, and never have, structured my thoughts in full inner-voiced sentences. When I balls up something I don't get scolded by a voice saying "Well, Chevrons, you really fked that up, didn't you. Why did you do that?" I just feel the embarrassment, stress, fear whatever and my mind visually generates a reel of the alternatives I should have done and the consequences of my balls-up.
Maybe internal monologue are slower in their processing of things?
Cheers for the detailed reply.
It’s very interesting. I would say I do both at the same time.
So I’m thinking about something while picturing it. I’m a retired tradesman( plasterer/builder) so I will ‘live’ the process before actually carrying out an action.
If it’s a monotonous action like plastering then my brain let’s me go into automatic mode so I can then talk to myself about many things, these will almost certainly also be in pictures and because I live in France I use those times thinking in French also. Sometimes in an action or often with a third party conversation.
I don’t know if it’s connected but I can bring smells of certain things into the mix also.
So I’m thinking about something while picturing it. I’m a retired tradesman( plasterer/builder) so I will ‘live’ the process before actually carrying out an action.
If it’s a monotonous action like plastering then my brain let’s me go into automatic mode so I can then talk to myself about many things, these will almost certainly also be in pictures and because I live in France I use those times thinking in French also. Sometimes in an action or often with a third party conversation.
I don’t know if it’s connected but I can bring smells of certain things into the mix also.
Roofless Toothless said:
We are all born with the capacity for language, but do not start using it for some two years, and then very crudely. It takes several years to achieve a moderately sophisticated command of language.
Clearly we are thinking, though, for all this time.
Thought comes first, and is non verbal. The words come secondarily and are a means of cementing moments of thought in time, or communicating them to another person. Of course, if totting up a long line of numbers I will probably say the sums in my head, but this is not really thought, but a way of using the brain in a machine like manner.
By the time the words come the thoughts have already been and gone. If you are thinking in words then all you are doing is manipulating certain preformed concepts, as if fitting in shapes in a game of Tetris.
But isn't that one of the reasons that early childhood memories doesn't tend to be anything from vague through to nonexistent, because as you develop all that early unstructured fragmented stuff just doesn't have a way to reference it?Clearly we are thinking, though, for all this time.
Thought comes first, and is non verbal. The words come secondarily and are a means of cementing moments of thought in time, or communicating them to another person. Of course, if totting up a long line of numbers I will probably say the sums in my head, but this is not really thought, but a way of using the brain in a machine like manner.
By the time the words come the thoughts have already been and gone. If you are thinking in words then all you are doing is manipulating certain preformed concepts, as if fitting in shapes in a game of Tetris.
Obviously 'stuff' ends up in there but encoded accessible autobiographical memory doesn't start to work without something to it hang off.
It could be some people are just quibbling over the finer details of how their thoughts manifest internally (tricky to visualise it for yourself, let alone compare details), but if there's really a silent little space up there then like people who don't dream then there's some processes that just aren't working and it's a developmental disorder.
vixen1700 said:
Your thought about thinking in words being slower is interesting, so on that for example: if I'm watching The Chase and answering questions quickly, I hear and say the answer in my head before saying it out loud to my mrs. Do you hear or say the word in your head or do you see or feel it?
At the speed of thinking needed to keep up with something like the final round of The Chase, I'd struggle to really lay out how my recall process works (I'll have to consciously 'observe' it next time - although I imagine even that may sound odd to you, since presumably you 'listen' to your thought processes?). But I can definitively say there is no internal verbal stage. The mental sensation is more like rapidly flicking through a rolodex or scanning a bookshelf for a specific title, then I 'see' it and the answer is just there, being turned into actual speech at my vocal cords at what seems to me like the same instant. vixen1700 said:
A 50/50 split of people with or without is surprising (to me anyway). Wow! I literally had no idea.
Studies have struggled to pin down a solid estimate, but the range of results implies that it's about an even split - https://www.verywellmind.com/does-everyone-have-an...You may even be in the minority as a monologue-haver - but (just like me and my attitude to cartoon thought bubbles when I was young) we all just assume that everyone thinks the way we do.
It's obviously something very hard to properly record and numerate, because analysing and defining your own thought processes is very hard. And it's almost certainly a spectrum. I am confident in saying that I don't think by default in an internal monologue, but I can start a dialogue in my head if I want, and I 'hear' written text in my 'inner ear' when I'm reading it, alongside a visual rendering.
vixen1700 said:
The Greggs thing is interesting, the lack of words is a hard one to imagine.
And to me, the idea of having a running verbal commentary in my own head, or having to decide whether I wanted to go to Greggs or Costa by 'thinking out' the decision in full sentences just sounds impossible. To me, that would literally 'get in the way' of me having any actual thoughts, doing anything creative or making any plans or decisions. Like having someone nattering in my ear the whole time. As well as, to my conception, being incredibly drawn-out and slow. vixen1700 said:
But I never, and never have, structured my thoughts in full inner-voiced sentences. When I balls up something I don't get scolded by a voice saying "Well, Chevrons, you really fked that up, didn't you. Why did you do that?" I just feel the embarrassment, stress, fear whatever and my mind visually generates a reel of the alternatives I should have done and the consequences of my balls-up.
Here's another example. A friend and I were in our shared storage unit, each working on our respective cars. I heard the distinctive clatter of a spanner slipping off a bolt head, falling through an engine bay and onto the concrete fall, followed by suitable curses. My friend said "You know, the thing is I'd just second thought to myself "If you drop this spanner now, it's going to be a real pain in the arse to get back.""And so was revealed that he had an inner monologue and literally had a voice in his head say that sentence as I just wrote it. I've often had the same conceptual thought when working on cars, but I've never formed or 'heard' it as a full, structured sentence. It comes as a rapid-fire image of the spanner falling and me having to get down off the bonnet and scrabble on the floor to get it back, a sensation of the awkward stretching to get under the car, a recall of what cold concrete on knees feels like and an emotional hit of the frustration that I'm anticipating but want to avoid. All in, what seems to me like, no more than a second.
vixen1700 said:
Maybe internal monologue are slower in their processing of things?
I first encountered the monologue/no monologue thing when doing my military training. It was passed over as an example of thinking processes (like 1st and 2nd order thought and various other human factors like startle response, stress tunnelling etc.) but it intrigued me, because I reckoned that if there was a 50/50 split in your group of people not only processing information but formulating thoughts and ideas, and in some ways even perceiving the world, in very different ways, it was important as a would-be leader and assessor to appreciate the differences.So I later did some self-reflection and self-analysis on how I responded to both routine and unexpected situations and then some unscientific data-gathering how others in my cohort did.
Those who reported having an inner monologue seemed to respond more slowly to situations but produce 'sounder' outcomes. Those without the monologue responded more quickly and often in more imaginative/creative ways, but more of their plans or decisions went awry by overlooking factors that could have been taken in and digested earlier on. But they were also better at realigning their plans and actions in response, and more effective at coping with sudden injections to a scenario or a change of plan suddenly forced from above. The monologue-havers took more time to make better decisions, but sometimes you have to make one based on impulse or snap judgements.
A technique that I developed as the training progressed, the scenarios become more complex and the assessments became more severe was to talk through my initial plan with my second-in-command. They could see or suggest things that I had overlooked or incorrectly assessed, and often I would pick these up as I briefed them. So in effect I was giving myself the capability that, presumably, monologue-havers have in their heads as they structure and 'verbalise' their ideas, rather than it all coming in a rapid-fire slideshow of images as it does for me.
Edited by 2xChevrons on Friday 15th August 11:42
Mr Magooagain said:
It’s very interesting. I would say I do both at the same time.
Yes, same here. If I'm thinking about (which I do a lot of
) say getting a supercharged Jag for example, I can visualise it from all angles, in all colours, driving it, the smell of the leather, the sound etc. All at the same time as having a conversation in my head about the running costs, the pros & cons, cars I've seen for sale, the difference in prices etc. All of that in 'conversation' in my head at the same time as the visuals.
I don't have an internal monologue. I also read very quickly. Rather than 'hearing' the words in my head, I just look at the page and the meaning is there, in my head.
I can be incredibly tactless and inappropriate at times. There is no internal filter. I wonder if the two are related.
I can be incredibly tactless and inappropriate at times. There is no internal filter. I wonder if the two are related.
JoshSm said:
But isn't that one of the reasons that early childhood memories doesn't tend to be anything from vague through to nonexistent, because as you develop all that early unstructured fragmented stuff just doesn't have a way to reference it?
Obviously 'stuff' ends up in there but encoded accessible autobiographical memory doesn't start to work without something to it hang off.
It could be some people are just quibbling over the finer details of how their thoughts manifest internally (tricky to visualise it for yourself, let alone compare details), but if there's really a silent little space up there then like people who don't dream then there's some processes that just aren't working and it's a developmental disorder.
I have very strong memories from events when I was two years old. Nothing else up to the age of eleven.Obviously 'stuff' ends up in there but encoded accessible autobiographical memory doesn't start to work without something to it hang off.
It could be some people are just quibbling over the finer details of how their thoughts manifest internally (tricky to visualise it for yourself, let alone compare details), but if there's really a silent little space up there then like people who don't dream then there's some processes that just aren't working and it's a developmental disorder.
The first might be relevant here. I was in my cot at my grandparents house in the country. About 1950. It was a wooden cot with vertical bars on the side. I could hear pigeons cooing and I didn’t know what the sound was. (We lived in town and even the sparrows sounded like they were on 40 fags a day.) I can clearly remember wondering whether this was the sound that grown ups made when they put the kids to bed. I didn’t have the language to reason that out.
Yes, I think I’m the same as some on here in that I conceptualise things but do not ‘hear’ full sentences.
If I’m thinking about the consequences of an action I think about them but I don’t think literally “if I do that then…” in words.
Oddly I am now doing that in preparing to type an actual response here, and it’s different. But it’s fascinating as we can never truly experience the other side!
If I’m thinking about the consequences of an action I think about them but I don’t think literally “if I do that then…” in words.
Oddly I am now doing that in preparing to type an actual response here, and it’s different. But it’s fascinating as we can never truly experience the other side!
I'm still getting my head round the possibility that half the world doesn't think this way. 
When non internal monolgue people see people in films and tv thinking in words, do they not wonder why they don't do that?
I don't recall any visualations (lack of word thoughts) which apparently would relate to half the world, in films etc. If you can think of anything that does this...
Been thinking about this a lot this morning.
When non internal monolgue people see people in films and tv thinking in words, do they not wonder why they don't do that?
I don't recall any visualations (lack of word thoughts) which apparently would relate to half the world, in films etc. If you can think of anything that does this...
Been thinking about this a lot this morning.
vixen1700 said:
When non internal monolgue people see people in films and tv thinking in words, do they not wonder why they don't do that?
I don't recall any visualations (lack of word thoughts) which apparently would relate to half the world, in films etc. If you can think of anything that does this...
Nope.I don't recall any visualations (lack of word thoughts) which apparently would relate to half the world, in films etc. If you can think of anything that does this...
As I said in my earlier post, I just assumed that thought bubbles, voiceovers, JD in 'Scrubs' having long drawn-out ponders in his head etc. were just artistic conventions to simplify and clarify the showing of thoughts. It never confused me and I never really consciously twigged that it wasn't how I thought.
I assume that for people with internal monologues that bubbles/VO is fairly accurate representation of their processes? I've never seen an in-media depiction of how my thought process and imagination works. But it would be a largely incoherent blur of single-frame images or short 'clips'.
In fact, if you've seen 'Minority Report', the little fragments of imagery and sound that Tom Cruise gets as visions of future crimes from the Precogs is not a million miles away.
Another random question.
If you don't have your own 'voice'/'conversation' can you pick up on others?
For example, this is quite cringey, but it's a habit I have in my own head and is therefore my private thought.
For as many years as I can remember (back to a teenager) if I see an exceptional looking woman I do a Leslie Philips "Ding-Dong" or "Hello" in my head
and it sounds exactly like him to me. I know it's me because I talk in my head, but if you don't talk in your head can you do this, or when reading can you change the voices of characters if you don't have an original voice to change?
If you don't have your own 'voice'/'conversation' can you pick up on others?
For example, this is quite cringey, but it's a habit I have in my own head and is therefore my private thought.
For as many years as I can remember (back to a teenager) if I see an exceptional looking woman I do a Leslie Philips "Ding-Dong" or "Hello" in my head
and it sounds exactly like him to me. I know it's me because I talk in my head, but if you don't talk in your head can you do this, or when reading can you change the voices of characters if you don't have an original voice to change?Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff