I might be a bit of an oddball here. I sound words in my head when typing, and sometimes when speaking- the standard internal monologue. At other times though, during sex, for example, I think in abstract impressions- things I can’t put into words. Here’s the odd part though- during speech, I occasionally visualize the words, without sounding them out, before and as I speak. In other words, I’m speaking from a prepared manuscript in my head…
Sometimes I know what my internal monologue is going to say before he even says it. predictable bastard.
Hellen Keller did not have a language in the spoken sence. But her language centres of the brain were not likely daument during her youth. It is unclear whether the language section of her brain did not play a part in these early memories.
A refutation of the theory that language is necessary for memory, would be by showing that someone whose entire language processing section of the brain was missing was non the less able to store memories. I am not sure if such a large loss of brain capability is survivable, or that there would be any way to determine if such a person had memories since communication with them would be almoist impossible if the alcked the language processing section of the brain.
This is a question central to the field of Cognitive Psychology. Early CP treated the mind as a black box, and we got a bunch of advanced Pavlovian crank-turning, but no new real insights into the mind and consciousness. But in the 60’s, as we began to understand more about the brain, and how it works, and what its different parts do, it became more acceptable to open the black box and talk about internal processes, both physical and mental
There has been a lot of hypothesization on the concept of consciousness, far too much to even start covering here, but you might wish to check out some of the publications by Daniel Dennett or the Enyclopedia of Psychology
All of us think on several layers. The topmost is the “monologue” that the OP inquires about. These include willful cognition, auditory memories, verbalisations of thoughts arising from the lower, more abstract layers, and preparatory thought for oral or written communications.
Some people, perhaps most people, consider only the internal verbalization of ideas to be “conscious thought” but there are many who are aware of more abstract modes. picunurse and dutchboy are two of the latter, and slipster’s classroom experience bears them out.
The currently accepted ideas around the verbal layer of conscious thought acknowledge that there are structures in the human brain that seem to have evolved for the purpose of understanding and generating speech. Some claim that infant humans can understand adult speech as early as a few weeks old, or even in the womb, but this has yet to be shown distinct from empathic emotional inferences.
It’s commonly agreed that the verbal layer of thought, the internal monologue, develops concurrently with the development of speech. Some claim it is an essential step in learning to talk. Some indirect evidence supports this.
Language teachers tell us that we must “think in the language” - that thinking in our native language and then translating doesn’t work well. Indeed, this acknowleges the internal monologue and its neccessity for spoken communication.
Also, think back to when you learned that you didn’t need to verbalize every thought that entered your head. You do remember learning this, right? I know there are some folks who don’t seem to… or never have! But the tendency of children to speak every word of their internal monologe, and the requirement that they learn to supress the speech part suggests that the verbal layer of thought is a later development of our intelligence.
So. Depending on how you define it, your internal monologue developed when either:
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you learned to talk and form words and string them together into sentances, or
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you learned not speak every thought, thus transforming your diarrhea of the mouth into an internalized stream of prattle.
This is really interesting… I was wondering a couple of things about my personal internal monologue that I’ve always pondered if other people had…
1 - Sometimes my mind just spouts gibberish to itself for no good reason kind of like getting a song trapped in there only the lyrics are random words.
2 - I seem to have the angel/devil monologue with myself a lot. Out of nowhere a little voice is trying to get me to steal a cookie for example. Then the other part of my brain tells it to shut up and go away and it does.
Not all thought for me is in words either. And I tend to get stuff a little mixed up in my mind. I’ve confused people by describing texture with a color or a sound with a feeling. For example black is hard to me and blue is wet and green is slimy.
Very interesting.
From my experience people develop an internal monologue at a time much after learning to speak. I know others, myself included, that only started an internal dialogue in their late teens. Perhaps this is the case with most people - dunno.
Perhaps the onset of the internal monologue has something to do with the amount of practice speaking a person experiences. The dialogue is used to plan fragments of speach or think through logical propositions.
If you dont have an opportunity to speak much earlier in life, perhaps you live in a world of visual thought for longer.
Quick question antechinus when you said dialogue in the above post did you mean that you have an internal conversation (two voices talking to each other)? or did you really mean to use the word monologue (one voice talking alone [possibly to themself, or two a silent audience] )
I could expect the ability to hold internal conversations, would be late developing, as this is a tactical way to help calrify your own response to possible responces from others. But if you did really mean hat your internal monologue didn’t develop until your teens. Then what was your thought process like before your teens, did you think of things as feelings and emotions, or in some other way?