Who Is Talking When You Think?

When you think in sentences, someone in your head is speaking. And someone is listening. It can't be the same person at the same instant. The inner voice isn't a metaphor — in a scanner, the exact same brain region lights up as when you speak out loud. And when scientists checked how often that voice actually shows up, they found something that dismantles everything you assumed about yourself. SOURCES: Russell Hurlburt, Christopher Heavey — Descriptive Experience Sampling; inner speech in roughly 23-25% of sampled waking moments, with individual rates ranging from near 0% to about 94% Charles Fernyhough, "The Voices Within" (2016) — the dialogic nature of inner speech Lev Vygotsky, "Thought and Language" (1934) — private speech in children and its internalization Neuroimaging of inner speech — activation of Broca's area (McGuire et al. and others) Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Daniel Wolpert, Chris Frith — corollary discharge; why you can't tickle yourself Chris Frith — the action-monitoring account of auditory hallucinations Research on subvocalization and laryngeal muscle activity during inner speech and auditory hallucinations #psychology #brain #thinking #consciousness #neuroscience #innervoice #darkpsychology