I think the OP is talking about two things which may or may not not go together: thinking in words, and thinking those words out loud.
ETA: Speaking of interior monologues, it appears that most, but not all, Dopers report having them:
Yup.
Or at any rate, I’ve had words running through my head in a continuous stream since I was a very small child; and any coherent thought that I have is in the form of words; though there’s a part of my head that functions without them and usually manages to communicate with the part that puts things into words. I don’t think I can describe it any better than that, and I’m only trying to describe it at all because I’m too sleepy to know better. – hunger is a sensation without words, but when the conscious mind notices the hunger, the conscious mind puts it into words. And if I were hungry but unconscious, I don’t think I’d know that I was hungry. – might dream about it, though. The dreaming mind is partially nonverbal, which might be why the waking mind can rarely remember the dreams, and if I do so it’s by repeating them in words to myself.
I don’t usually talk out loud to myself, though, even if I’m alone – though I sometimes talk to the cats, the dog, the tractor, the weeds, the weather, etcetera; does that count? And sometimes I talk to myself out loud; just not often.
There’s no sound that goes along with the inner monologue. It’s just silent words, like reading to oneself, except that I don’t see the words, either. But I form them in my head.
Oh, yeah, there’s that too. If I want to definitely remember that I turned off the irrigation water and not have to hike out to the hydrant to check, I may as I stand there having just turned it off repeat to myself ‘the water is Off’ and sometimes I say that out loud.
They are indeed. I apparently have no “mind’s eye”; I thought until recently that that was just a metaphor. But I don’t understand how people who can literally see things in their minds that aren’t there tell that from looking at the things in reality.
ETA, just now: “I’m going to make myself that sandwich soon . – I just said that aloud, didn’t I? – Now I am talking to myself, damn it!” Maybe I do that more often than I think. Or maybe it was brought on by this thread.
I am someone who has self-talk. And I would argue that thoughts are words. It’s not that I need to put into language. It just already is in that form.
Sure, there are other phenomena in my brain. But those are not what I’d consider thoughts. They are sensations, feelings, or experiences. They are imagination or visualization.
But actual thoughts are definitely in language. And speaking those thoughts out loud is sometimes useful for clarity.
That said, it can also just be because silence can be annoying. A lot of people I would interact with online would talk about how they talked to themselves a lot more due to lack of other social interactions.
The thing that made covid-mask-wearing somewhat bearable was the ability to heap imprecations on the supermarket without worrying about lip-readers.
And I always rehearse my conversations with Spike - I don’t want my cat to think I’m a fumble-tongue.
Dan
I suspect every cat thinks every human is an idiot already.
Oh, man - Spike, say it isn’t so!
Dan
I have always had a continuous interior monologue, and as my brain ages, I find I need to speak things aloud just to remember what I am walking into the room for. You will find me muttering “hat, sunscreen, knife” and other such. I also talk to animals, plants, and inanimate objects I am interacting with, in a fairly constant stream. Luckily I live in a rather isolated place and my husband is going deaf.
I wonder if thinking in words and being able to visualize images are linked? I have a crazy vivid imagination complete with color and sound, and so do all the artists and fiction writers I have ever known (among others). Really hard to comprehend not having this capacity.
Not essentially. I think in words and don’t have a mind’s eye. See post #42.
But then, I’m odd. (But then, aren’t we all?)
My wife frequently thinks out loud and with my hearing going I find it very annoying and then I tune her out completely as I never know when it is important to listen and that annoys her.
On the other hand I never do that. I am perfectly capable of having a long interior monologue in perfect silence. Sometimes, lying awake in the middle of the night I have worked out–in total silence–the details of some mathematical problem I am thinking about. In the morning, I write it all down and it is usually correct. I think I would go back to sleep faster if I didn’t do that, but it is hard to turn off.
I always talk to the smartest person around.
And I’ve always got something to say worth listening to.
I sorta kinda envy people who can think out loud. I imagine how much easier it would be to talk to people, and let people get to know me and connect with people and make friends, if I had the ability to open my mouth and just let an internal monologue flow out.
On the other hand, I could imagine myself getting into trouble doing that. And I don’t envy people who pretty much have to think out loud.
That’s what I call it, too.
The opposite with me, then - I do not think in words but visualize things. For example I do not think the words “Should we take the longer trail or the more difficult one?” but rather I imagine (1) sweatily slogging through a long detour and my wife grumbling on and on, (2) my wife missing a step and rolling down a hillside until stopped by a tree with me watching in horror and (3) my wife making a smaller misstep and tearing her pre-injured knee.
Oddly, I seem to be surrounded by a lot of folks who can’t hear someone mention things without picturing them in their head. For instance, I can talk about a lot of concepts without picturing them in my head. so I can yammer on about a lot of atrocious things. Been thrown out of more than one control booth in a studio because someone decides “I can’t think at all with the images you’re putting in my head, Scabpicker!”
Yes, this mental peculiarity probably contributed to why I didn’t think twice about this username 20 some-odd years ago.
Hehehe, I usually am able to do this, too, I’ve held my tongue in so many settings. But then sometimes the transmission between the language center and the vocal cords and tongue become engaged without my realizing it, and I say whatever language the brain has loaded and ready to go. Often the first indication my conscious brain has that I said anything at all is the reaction of others to what I just said.
Yeah, brains is weird, and hard to drive.
I do it constantly when I’m alone, particularly in the car on long drives. I suspect it’s an ASD thing…I rehearse conversations before I have them to make it easier later. And if it’s an oft-told story I imagine it’s like verbal stimming. But I take pains to make sure other people don’t catch me doing it.
Mine - or what I recall of it - seems to be task-related, like the memory list mentioned upthread, or meal-planning when I’m doing the weekly shop. Sometimes it’ll be re-hashing some old argument (which is why I tend to avoid TV news and switched from the BBC’s current affairs channel to its classical music one).
And mentioning music: I’m currently reading Oliver Sacks’s Musicophilia, which explores the different ways our brain handles music, including (in my current chapters) quite a bit on earworms and musical memory and imagery.
I’ve been doing this since I was young. I remember at school needing to speak a maths problem out loud, in order to clarify the multiple complex steps to myself, and not get distracted by the other sensory input coming from my fellow students or just my own anxieties churning through my brain.
But also:
…these are me too.
This was exactly the case with a coworker.
I shared an office with him for 15 years. He talked, and talked to himself, nonstop. “What’s wrong with my computer? Do we have a meeting today? I need to send this email. It looks like it might rain today. My back hurts. Why won’t this email go through? Traffic was horrible today…”
All. Day. Long.
My brain eventually rewired itself, to the point where I could completely tune him out.