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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3192 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 15, 2023

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I noticed something odd tonight, as I'm worn out after a long day at work, my internal monolog has changed in tone.

It seems to have become flatter and without affect, in much the same way that your voice does when you speak too much and end up slightly hoarse. I stopped reading a story because my own internal voice became too unpleasant to listen to!

Anyone ever experience anything along those lines?

(On a slight tangent, I've seen people who don't internally verbalize claim they think faster than those who do. I can't say I agree to such a claim, I've never felt my chain of thoughts slow me down. But then again, I'm firmly in wordcel territory, so who knows?)

I have an internal monologue, but it's slower than my thoughts. I don't see how it could slow me down. That's like saying speaking or writing slows your thinking down.

I've seen people who don't internally verbalize claim they think faster than those who do. I can't say I agree to such a claim, I've never felt my chain of thoughts slow me down.

The word you're looking for is subvocalize.

There is at least one instance of one-subvocalization being faster that everyone can easily experience, try to learn how to do spead reading aka reading multiple adjacents words at once.

With enough practice you end up stopping subvocalization as it is a speed bottleneck. However, it is a very underresearched topic, it's possible non subvocalization has cognitive impacts such as altered memorizations performance, creative process and or ability to detect logical fallacies.

The more interesting question is that apparently many humans do not subvocalize (think symbolically) on average, which would impact many philosophical and computer science questions.

(Previously posted by me on r\SSC, reposting here because relevant.)

I don’t remember how coherent my internal monologue used to be, but one day I noticed it, and asked myself where the words themselves were coming from. I realized I had an internal dramatizer which prepped the words with emotions for expressing to others, or more often, to myself.

I also realized I could sense the words before I thought them — I was thinking in concepts which felt like the shapes of words, a tactilization of concepts, before sending them to the verbalizer and the dramatizer.

I practiced noticing my thoughts earlier and earlier: interrupting the dramatizer with my next thought, then the verbalizer. I could think so much faster than if I were waiting for my phonological loop.

Of course, Redditing / Motting puts me back on the phonological loop treadmill, because my fingers are the slowest method of communicating, and I’ve already said “communicating” to myself half a dozen times before I’ve finished typing it.

I don't have a constantly running internal monologue. I "turn it on" when I'm thinking about highly verbal concepts, like the particular way I want to phrase something, but in general my thinking is more conceptual and less verbal.

This got me thinking about what my default internal monologue "sounds" like, and I guess it sounds like myself when I was a little boy, like 10 year old me. I feel like the sound of my internal monologue hasn't changed since I was a kid. I can deliberately make it sound different, like I'm currently deliberately narrating this sentence in the voice of Jimmy Stewart as I type it. But by default it's little kid me.

I think the fact that I don't always internally verbalize allows me to think better/faster, but who knows. If I'm working on math then I think in terms of a visual or conceptual image of the math problem. If I'm thinking about music then I just hear the music in my head. Music is probably the form of thinking that's easiest for me, I can internally play back a song with multiple instruments and vocal parts. I have written original songs entirely in my head that I'm not good enough to actually play on an instrument but I can easily play them back internally as though I was hitting "play" on a recording. I have some musical training but am by no means a professional.

I've heard you can read faster and comprehend more when reading without internally verbalizing the words. I believe that but I haven't been able to train myself to do it consistently.

The trick is to view passages of texts as pictures instead of passages of texts that need to be read and enunciated in your head. Literally, scan your eyes through the lines and let your subconscious do the work.

I can do it to some extent, especially if I internally verbalize "one two three" over and over and just focusing on visually seeing the lines of text as a whole. But when I'm not actively trying I immediately revert to my old ways.

I'm not sure I can even do that, I've never read a word in my life without my internal narrator!

Wait, some people verbalize what they read? I have the problem of not knowing how to pronounce or spell a lot of words that are in my "read" vocabulary because I learned the symbol without verbalizing it.

I just make up a usually wrong pronunciation when doing this. For example when reading Game of Thrones Dothraki became Dork-a-thigh until I heard the term on the show. But I read by word shape and context, it's really fast, but makes me the world's word proof reader, because I knew what word was meant and just substituted it.

makes me the world's word proof reader

Yep, that checks out. 😉

I verbalize every word I've ever read. I do not choose to do this.

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