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.
    • Eccitaze@yiffit.netEnglish
      12·
      7 months ago

      God, same. One of my little annoyances in life is that my internal voice is a goddamn motor mouth and I literally CANNOT stop it.

      I can stare at a white wall and watch paint dry, and my monologue will start philosophizing about watching paint dry, where the phrase came from, why I’m doing it (to try and silence my internal voice), then go on a wiki walk about how trying not to think about something makes you think about it more and the classic example of telling someone “don’t think about a brown bear” makes them think about bears, then I’ll start thinking about bears and my monologue is suddenly halfway across the world.

      Put me in a sensory deprivation tank, and my internal voice starts ruminating about how Daredevil uses these to sleep, then goes off about fight sequences, and then superhero comics, and whoops I’m halfway across the world.

      Even when I’m paying attention and listening, my inner voice is still motoring away, it’s just that it’s mirroring what is being said to me instead of going on its own wiki walk halfway across the world (though sometimes someone will say something that makes my internal voice go “wait a second, that makes me think of…” and then I stop listening while I go on a wiki walk).

      I have ADHD, in case it isn’t obvious yet.

    • DudeImMacGyver@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      7 months ago

      You can, but it takes work for some people. Various meditation can help, but require patience and diligence.

      I’ve learned to turn it off and on mostly at will and frequently just play music in my mind when I want to listen but can’t use headphones or a speaker.

      • delirious_owl@discuss.onlineEnglish
        2·
        7 months ago

        Usually its a song. But sometimes its more than one song playing at once. And sometimes there’s a narrator speaking over the music