People without an inner voice have poorer verbal memory
humanities.ku.dk
The vast majority of people have an ongoing conversation with themselves, an inner voice, that plays an important role in their daily lives. But between 5-10 per cent of the population do not have the same experience of an inner voice, and they find it more difficult to perform certain verbal memory tasks, new research shows.
  • BuelldozerAEnglish
    6·
    7 months ago

    Having an inner voice makes it easier to absorb the information in a book

    I think all of our brains are wired different and the different wiring leads to advantages in one thing but it’s probably a disadvantage for others. For instance I have no inner voice but my reading speed, with comprehension, is well faster than nearly anyone I’ve ever met. I can even sometimes recall precisely where on a page a given word or phrase was located, even years after reading the material. However I’m almost entirely unable to imagine a 3 dimensional object and rotate it in my “minds eye”.

    • Schmoo@slrpnk.netEnglish
      2·
      7 months ago

      That does make me wonder if maybe I use my inner voice as a bit of a crutch when I’m reading, but I think it helps me infer tone and get immersed in what I’m reading. Perhaps I am sacrificing some reading speed but I do believe it helps me with comprehension and memory.

      Though I will add that it’s more the concepts that I remember than the words themselves. Give me a quote and I couldn’t tell you what page and where on the page it was, but I could tell you what was happening in that scene, what happened before and after, what the character was feeling and why they said it, who they said it to and so on.

    • Today@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      7 months ago

      Same on remembering exactly where i read something. I used to be a fast reader - out of practice. Maybe it’s being able to skim instead of hearing every word?

    • Aceticon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      7 months ago

      I have an inner voice but I don’t use it when I’m reading, which is maybe why I am a very fast reader.

      I tend to use it when pondering on things. That said I just noticed that when composing and cross-checking this text for posting, I also used it.

      Curiously, nowadays my inner voice is not just in my own mothertongue but can be in just about any of the languages I know enough for basic conversation. It’s probably related to, because my foreign language skills are so advanced (I can speak about 7 languages) that I’ve long stopped translating to my native tongue in my mind and concepts just translate directly from those foreign languages. Also, I’ve lived in a couple of countries and as I would eventually end up mainly speaking the local language, my inner voice would also, eventually, end up also using that language.

      • MeThisGuy@feddit.nlEnglish
        1·
        7 months ago

        very interesting because I moved back to my home country 5 yrs ago after living abroad for 24. still think in my secondary language after being alone with my thoughts long enough

        • Aceticon@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          7 months ago

          Yeah, I have a similar experience of still thinking in a foreign language even though I’ve been back in my homeland for years after 2 decades abroad.

          I suspect my thinking language still being generally English is probably because I keep getting exposed to English-language media. I’ve noticed that, for example, if I think about my time living in The Netherlands or are exposed to Dutch-language media, my thinking often switches to Dutch.