Comment by desmosxxx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by desmosxxx | Hacker News Reader

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I've always been a bit perplexed by the claim of not having an inner monologue, but after reading the replies to your comment I wonder if I'm closer to not having an inner monologue than having one. I thought it was about not being able to summon an inner voice at all. Regardless, it's fascinating to read peoples descriptions and see that it lies on a spectrum.

I definitely experience it when reading & writing carefully and sometimes in deep thought with conscious effort, but never minute to minute and definitely not compulsively. I'd describe my minute to minute like you, more abstract and intuitive. Yet at the same time I'm very introspective, it just doesn't happen with an inner monologue.

edit: after reading the study, I think I fall into the not having an internal monologue. Fascinating.

In one of Feynman's books, he discusses and experiment that he did with people keeping time in their heads (count 30 seconds) while simultaneously reading a passage of a book. Some people had absolutely no issue with doing this, but many people found it impossible.

When he asked people how they kept track of how much time had passed, he found that people who pictured a number in their heads were able to keep time and read without issue, while those who "spoke" the time to themselves found it impossible to read.

Just tried it on this thread. I speak the time to myself and had no problem reading this comment and formulating a reply while keeping time.

Did the same and couldn't keep the time. I can feel the 1 second beat, but I forget what second I'm at after a few seconds

May I ask you if your inner voice has an accent, can you recognize a tone to it? It was very weird when I realized that other people can imagine their thoughts having a physical voice.

When I do have it, it does have a sound and sounds mostly like me.

Yeah, mine is my voice. When I was thinking rather or not to reply and what I would reply with it was just my voice - as it sounds in my skull, not as it sounds in recording - just talking through the details as if I were speaking out loud to myself.

My inner voice by default sounds like how much own voice sounds to me, but I can make it sound like anyone I know, even with accents, though I can't speak with those accents because I don't know how to move my mouth to precisely make the sounds.

Now I feel like I need to read the study to better understand the definition.

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