Inner monologues are still a mystery
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What is the inner monologue and how does it vary among individuals?
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Hey, shortwavers. It's Emily Kwong. And Rachel Carlson, shortwave producer. And Emily, I think it's pretty safe to say that both of us read the team inbox, shortwave at NPR.org. Every morning, fervently. Exactly. And two months ago, you said something to reporter John Hamilton that really piqued our audience's interest. I don't have an inner monologue.
Not everybody has an inner monologue. This is something that doesn't work for everybody. I'm safe. Yeah, exactly.
I'm so proud of myself. And our inbox lit up about this. People wrote, is that even a thing? I don't understand. How is that possible? So we had to confirm science backs this up, right? Not everyone has an inner monologue.
It is true. Scientists confirm. For some people, inner speech is far less wordy. So my inner experience isn't really word-based. It's more like a moving landscape of images. It's kind of like soaking in an emotional bath and like feelings.
I love it.
Yeah, and feelings and images will rise and they'll fall. But there's no words. It's real silent.
Mine is loud. Oh, no. It does not feel like a bath. feels like it's dialogue heavy. So whether it's a conversation that I'm having with myself or an imagined conversation with other people. Yeah, it's a screenplay.
Me, myself and my voice. Yeah, totally.
But Emily, this got us thinking about how different the insides of people's heads are. And it turns out there are scientists who study what's going on in people's minds.
I think it's the most interesting question on the planet. The earliest known writings like Gilgamesh or whatever you call the earliest writings are interested in inner experience.
This is Russell Hurlburt, a psychologist at the University of Nevada. And Russ is a legend in the field for being one of the first to gather data on inner experiences through a beeper.
Participants carried this device around and every time it beeped, they filled out a questionnaire to quantify their inner experience. But there was a problem.
How does science confirm that not everyone has an inner monologue?
People didn't know what they were talking about when they picked a number on a Likert scale. And I didn't know what they were talking about. The data was just rotten on the way in.
So he ditched the questionnaires and instead told participants every time the beeper goes off, write down what's going on internally in your own words.
And then we get together and talk about it.
Russ called this technique descriptive experience sampling. It was illuminating, sometimes even life-changing for the participants involved. But Russ is the first to say how highly imperfect his method is.
It's just people saying what's going on in their heads, but How do you confirm?
Yeah, like how do you check for accuracy? Like he believes that people do not fully know the characteristics of their inner experience, including me.
You've got no good reason to be confident that you do or do not have an inner monologue. Because there's just too many layers between what your inner experience actually is and what you might say about it.
That was humbling to hear.
It's humbling, yes. But, Emily, you know, even if people can't fully know themselves, scientists are still trying to figure it out, including a collaborator of Russell's, Charles Ferniho.
We've shown you can do it. Not just us, teams all around the world have shown you can study this stuff. You can have a science of it.
So today on the show, how far can the science go in the quest to know thyself?
I'm Emily Kwong. And I'm Rachel Carlson. You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.
Okay, short wavers. Rachel and I are here with Charles Ferniho. He's a professor of psychology at Durham University and studies inner speech, which is one of many kinds of internal experiences.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the inner monologue and how does it vary among individuals?
0:00–2:40
2
How does science confirm that not everyone has an inner monologue?
2:40–6:43
3
What techniques are used to study inner experiences?
6:43–10:13
4
How do language areas in the brain relate to inner speech?
10:13–14:07
5
What is the difference between inner speech and voice hearing?
14:07–14:28
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from Short Wave
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