Random Thoughts

[Angrboda]

This latest study, from researchers at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US, also proposes a new name for the condition of not having any inner speech: anendophasia.

This is similar to (if not the same as) anauralia, a term researchers coined in 2021 for people who don't have an inner voice, nor can they imagine sounds, like a musical tune or siren.

Focusing on inner voices in this study, the team recruited 93 volunteers, half of whom said they had low levels of inner speech, while the other half reported having a very chatty internal monologue. These participants attempted a series of tasks – including one where they had to remember the order of words in a sequence, and another where rhyming words had to be paired together.

"It is a task that will be difficult for everyone, but our hypothesis was that it might be even more difficult if you did not have an inner voice because you have to repeat the words to yourself inside your head in order to remember them," says linguist Johanne Nedergård, from the University of Copenhagen.

"And this hypothesis turned out to be true."

The volunteers who reported hearing inner voices during everyday life did significantly better at the tasks than those without inner monologues: Inner speakers recalled more words correctly, and matched rhyming words faster. The researchers think this could be evidence that inner voices help people process words.

It's interesting to note that the performance differences disappeared when the volunteers spoke out loud to try and solve the problems they were given. It may be that using an audible voice is just as effective as using an inner voice in these situations.

https://www.sciencealert.com/we-used-to-...were-wrong