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Comment by infinite_spin | Hacker News Reader

I'm very reluctant to believe people when they say they don't have an internal monologue. Studies on the matter all appear to rely on self-reported data, not objective measurements. It's been shown that electromyography can be used to measure myoelectric signals produced when a person subvocalizes their speech (i.e. an inner monologue). It works well enough to reconstruct and synthesize that speech.

So we could test this objectively, and I'm not sure why we haven't.

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I'm not sure what you think all these people have to gain from tricking you. I have no internal monologue. None whatsoever. If I have something like an internal monologue I don't have any conscious access to it at all. When I want to think through a spatial type problem, I can visualize shapes, images, rotations, relationships, etc but it has no verbal component. If I want to think through a text or verbal heavy task, like perhaps planning some code, I type it out. I do have intrusive thoughts but they are in the form of memories of a thing that happened or simulations of something that could happen, I guess. I most surely do not have an internal narrator or anything that approaches any kind of inner verbal life.

> I'm not sure what you think all these people have to gain from tricking you.

Asking for objective evidence of a phenomenon being self-reported by enough people to make the news isn't really about me. I don't know why you're being defensive in a thread that wasn't directed at you, but this is not a good sign.

Weird that you go right to assuming everyone who doesn't agree with you is defensive. I think you need to recalibrate your outrage sensors.

You said a thing doesn't exist. I pointed out that the thing does, in fact, exist. That's all that happened here.

> I'm not sure what you think all these people have to gain from tricking you.

Your very first response is attacking me, not an argument I've made.

> Weird that you go right to assuming everyone who doesn't agree with you is defensive.

Your second response is also attacking me, not an argument I've made.

> I think you need to recalibrate your outrage sensors.

I'm not outraged at all.

> You said a thing doesn't exist.

I'm assuming by "thing" you mean "people with no inner monologue", and I have not claimed they don't exist, I made a statement concerning my disbelief. There is a difference.

> I pointed out that the thing does, in fact, exist.

Your claim that you experience this should be verified before we accept it as a scientific fact. If that were not the case, telepathy would be considered a fact.

These responses from you have made me even more suspicious of the veracity of your claims. Again, not outraged, just wish to verify what is true.

A person who is honest about their experiences, and has reported those as fact, should welcome verification.. you've clearly decided against that.

> I'm very reluctant to believe people when they say they don't have an internal monologue.

Why would you choose internal monologue as the default position and no internal monologue needs to be proved?

It seems the natural position for an unknown would be to assume it is not the case unless there is evidence for it.

Because most people I know can read without mouthing the words. At any rate, we can just test both cases if people who claim one or the other are willing.

I'm not sure why this seems like a problem, or why you have to criticize my default position, but my own personal views on the matter aren't important here.

I don't see how reading has anything to do with internal monologue. Do you hear the words you read when reading? If so, it surely has to be slow as hell.

I did get relatively good scores in reading speed back in primary/middle school when we took such tests, so maybe there's an explanation. At the same time, writing/speaking is a very resource-intensive task for me so I tend to be silent a lot (and then drop a pile of sentences on the unsuspecting people I'm with)

well, all the same, I think we should verify these claims .. I think part of the pushback to this is that it might make a group of people look dishonest if we can in fact detect subvocalization in people who have made this claim, but it's entirely possible that you are experiencing both and not realizing it. A bifurcation of sorts? In any event, we should support/expect further testing.

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