The self-reflective functions of inner speech: Thirteen years later

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11.1 Introduction
irteen years ago I published a paper on the relation between self-reection and inner
speech (Morin2005). e basic, intuitively attractive, idea was that a signicant part of
describing, dening, and understanding our self is done through extensive internal
verbal conversations we have with ourselves about any and all aspects of our self. e
current chapter aims at substantially updating this initial account by presenting new
theoretical ideas and novel empirical evidence unavailable back then. In what follows
I(1) introduce background information pertaining to the denitions, functions, neuro-
anatomy, and measurement of self-reection and inner speech, (2) formulate the main
hypothesis of a link between self-reection and self-talk, (3) present correlational and
causal empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis, and (4) explore theoretical
considerations concerning underlying mechanisms explaining how self-reection
and inner speech may interact. Some potential philosophical and clinical implications
of the key role played by self-talk in self-referential activities are outlined in conclusion.
11.2 O verview
11.2.1 Self-reection
Whereas consciousness is usually dened as a state in which one can process and adap-
tively respond to information coming from the external environment, self-awareness
constitutes the ability to become the object of one’s own attention (Duval &
Wicklund1972). Consciousness is more or less synonymous with wakefulness; self-
awareness instead involves the active identication, processing, and storing of infor-
mation from the internal milieu—the self (Morin 2006). Other terms oen used to
11
e Self-Reective Functions
of Inner Speech
irteen Years Later
Alain Morin

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designate self-awareness are self-reection (see below), introspection, self-focused
attention, self-observation, and mindfulness. Self-awareness entails bodily awareness
(Kyselo2014) as measured by self-face recognition (Gallup1985), thinking about any
possible private (internal) and public (visible) self-aspects (Ben-Artzi et al.1995), as
well as about one’s past (autobiography; Markowitsch & Staniloiu2011) and future
(prospection; Szpunar2010). Self-awareness is also associated with a host of various
self-related operations, among which are self-description (Marsh 1994), self-knowledge
(Wilson2009), self-concept formation (L’Ecuyer1978), self-evaluation (Higgins 1987),
self-esteem (Rosenberg1965), sense of agency (a minimal form of self-awareness;
Farrer & Frith 2002), self-regulation (Baumeister & Vohs 2007), self-ecacy
(Bandura 1977), and eory-of-Mind (ToM) (Dimaggio et al.2008). [See Morin
(2017) for proposed connections between these self-related concepts, as well as
DaSilveira et al. 2015 and Racy et al.2017 for correlations between self-terms.]
Trapnell & Campbell (1999) established a crucial distinction between two types of
self-awareness: self-reection and self-rumination. e former represents a healthy
genuine curiosity about the self, associated with positive psychological consequences
such as self-regulation and self-improvement, whereas the latter means unhealthy
excessive and redundant self-focus linked to depression and social anxiety (Joireman
et al.2002). Note that mindfulness is a concept closely associated with self-reection—
a non-evaluative, non-critical, non-elaborated form of self-focus (Carlson 2013).
Although this chapter is about self-reection (the term I will most oen use from now
on to designate self-awareness), there is no doubt that inner speech plays a role in
self-rumination. I also want to stress that in what follows I will be using the term
“self-reection” in a broad sense, not only limited to Trapnell & Campbell’s denition
but also including self-description, self-evaluation, mental time travel, self-knowledge,
self-concept formation, self-esteem, and self-regulation. I will submit that inner
speech plays a causal role in the implementation and maintenance of all these self-
related functions.
Various measures and manipulations of self-reection exist. Self-focusing stimuli
such as a mirror or audience have been extensively used in social/personality research
to induce a state of self-focus (Carver & Scheier1978). e Self-Consciousness Scale
(SCS; Fenigstein et al.1975) and the Rumination-Reection Questionnaire (RRQ;
Trapnell & Campbell1999) assess stable individual dierences in self-focused atten-
tion. e Linguistic Implications Form (LIF; Wegner & Giuliano1980) uses the fre-
quency of rst-person pronouns production as an indicator of self-attention. And the
Self-Novelty Manipulation (SNM; Silvia & Eichstaedt2004) produces self-reection
by inviting participants to think about what make them unique.
More recently, brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) technology have recorded brain activity in volunteers engaged in diverse
self-referential tasks such as agency (e.g., driving a circle along a T-shaped path either
by oneself or by an experimenter/computer; Farrer & Frith2002), autobiography (e.g.,
recalling memories in response to visual cues; Daselaar et al.2008), and prospection

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(e.g., pre-experiencing future personal events in response to visual cues; Addis
etal.2007). is line of work has led to the identication of a cortical network most
frequently activated during self-reection. is cortical network comprises the medial
prefrontal cortex (MPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and ventral anterior cingulate
cortex (VACC) (Beer2016).
11.2.2 Inner speech
Inner speech represents the activity of talking to oneself in silence (Alderson-Day &
Fernyhough2015). Many other terms are used to designate inner speech, such as
internal dialogue/monologue, phonological loop, self-directed speech, subvocal, cov-
ert, or acommunicative speech, auditory imagery, speech-for-self, self-verbalizations,
sub-vocalizations, self-statements, and silent verbal thinking (Morin2012). is state
of aairs clearly contributes to conceptual confusion in the inner speech literature.
Private speech is speech-for-self emitted out loud by children in social situations
(Zivin 1979); adults too report engaging in private speech when alone (Winsler
et al. 2006), an observation that contradicts Vygotsky’s (1943/1962) original view
according to which private speech gradually gets internalized with age and disappears
completely at adolescence, by then replaced by inner speech. Self-talk typically refers
to talking to oneself either silently or out loud (Brinthaupt et al.2015). Heavey &
Hurlburt (2008) estimate that around one fourth of people’s conscious waking life
consists of inner speech. is frequency illustrates the importance of this cognitive
activity, as inner speech indeed serves a host of very important cognitive functions as
described below.
Neuropsychological reports of brain-damaged patients and experimental data
gathered using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and fMRI technology show that
the le inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) represents a key cortical area sustaining inner
speech production. Multiple studies show LIFG activation when volunteers are invited
to silently read single words or sentences, or when they undertake working memory
tasks requiring covert repetition of verbal material (Baciu et al.1999; Geva et al.2011).
Also, accidental destruction or temporary disruption (using repetitive transcranial
magnetic stimulation) of the LIFG impedes inner speech (Aziz-Zadeh et al.2005;
Verstichel et al. 1997). Other brain areas associated with inner speech use are
Wernicke’s area, the supplementary motor area, insula, le superior parietal lobe, and
right posterior cerebellar cortex (Perrone-Bertolotti et al.2014).
Interestingly, Hurlburt and colleagues (2016) found dierences in brain activations
when volunteers were asked to engage in task-elicited compared to spontaneous inner
speech, where the former was associated with decreased activation in Heschl’s gyrus
and increased activation in LIFG, while the latter had the opposite eect in Heschl’s
gyrus and no signicant eect in LIFG. Another study (Alderson-Day et al.2016)
showed that, compared to a more static “monologic” inner speech, more complex
“ dialogic” inner speech activates a broader bilateral collection of brain areas, some of

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which (e.g., right posterior superior temporal gyrus) are also recruited when thinking
about others’ mental states.
Self-report questionnaires constitute the most common and easy way to quantify
inner speech. To illustrate, the Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire (VISQ—
McCarthy-Jones & Fernyhough2011) contains twenty items assessing the dialogic,
condensed, and evaluative/motivational properties of inner speech, as well as the
presence of voices of others in inner speech. e Self-Talk Scale (STS—Brinthaupt
etal.2009) is made up of sixteen items measuring the frequency of inner speech for
social assessment, self-criticism, self-reinforcement, and self-management pur-
poses. Non-self-report measures of inner speech include private speech recordings,
thought sampling and listing, as well as electromyographic recordings of tongue
movements. Recordings of private speech emitted by children when solving prob-
lems (e.g., puzzles) or planning (e.g., Tower of London) have been used in multiple
studies reviewed by Winsler (2009). Self-vocalizations are classied into various
categories (e.g., task-relevant/-irrelevant) and correlated with task performance.
ought sampling aims at capturing inner experiences in general, and sometimes
inner speech in particular, by randomly asking participants to identify their current
internal experiences/conversations in their natural environment using a beeper
(Alderson-Day & Fernyhough2015).
A very wide array of inner speech functions have been identied using the
aforementioned measurement techniques. By far the most documented function is
self-regulation (also known as verbal self-guidance), which was originally studied by
Russian psychologists (Luria1978; Vygotsky 1934/1962). In essence, people attempt to
alter their behavior, resist temptation, change their mood, select a response from vari-
ous options, and lter irrelevant information by talking to themselves. Indeed, block-
ing inner speech using articulatory suppression produces self-control decits on a
go–no-go task (Tullett & Inzlicht2010). Other inner speech functions associated with
various aspects of self-regulation are setting/remembering goals (Meacham1979),
planning, reasoning, problem-solving (Lidstone et al.2010), decision-making, and
self-motivating speech (Alderson-Day & Fernyhough2015).
Classic work by Baddeley and Hitch (1974) shows that inner speech serves a
mnemonic function by allowing rehearsal of material in short-term working
memory (the phonological loop); inner speech is also involved in remembering
one’spast (autobiographical memory; Larsen et al.2002). Multiple additional studies
also suggest that inner speech is actively used when people read, write, speak, and
calculate (language function; Abramson & Goldinger1997; Levine et al.1982), shi
attention between one task and another (task-switching performance; Karbach &
Kray2009), rehearse person-to-person communicative encounters, express emotions
(Fuson1979), learn to dierentiate their voice from those of others through private
speech use (Fernyhough & Russell1997), and think about others’ mental states
(eory-of-Mind; Fernyhough & Meins2009).

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11.3 Inner Speech Involvement in Self-Reection
e main proposal of this chapter is that yet another key function of inner speech
exists—its self-reective role (e.g., DeSouza et al. 2008; Morin 2005; Morin &
Everett1990a; Neuman & Nave2010; Turjman2016).1 e crux of the proposal is this:
e verbal labelling of self-characteristics (via inner speech) allows one to become
fully aware of them and to gradually incorporate these characteristics into a self-
concept. is idea is consistent with the view proposed by several philosophers:
attending to our inner speech makes it possible to bring out thoughts to consciousness.
at is, we become better aware of our own thoughts (and of any other self-aspects)
when they are expressed into inner speech (see Langland-Hassan2014 for a summary
and critique of this view). Closely related to this philosophical view is the higher-order
representationalist approach where one becomes aware of mental states when one
generates higher-order thoughts about them (Carruthers2002). To illustrate, one can
experience a desire (mental state) and perceive it by thinking about it (higher-order
thought, inner speech).
ree possible causal directions between inner speech and self-reection are con-
ceivable. (1) Inner speech leads to, increases, produces, sustains self-reection. Let’s
keep in mind that I am embracing a broad view of self-reection, which includes self-
related processes such as self-description, self-evaluation, mental time travel, self-
knowledge, self-concept formation, self-esteem, and self-regulation. For example, one
can talk to oneself about the type of person one is or about a pain experienced in one’s
stomach, which results in greater self-knowledge and richer self-concept, and/or
awareness of one’s physiological sensations, etc., insofar as this verbal self-analysis is
done in a transparent and honest fashion (see below). (2) Self-reection induces or
activates inner speech. For example, a group of people intensely observe John, who
starts talking to himself about what might be wrong about his looks. (3) I suspect that
most of the time self-reection and inner speech parallel one another, that is, there are
constant and rapid back and forth movements between these two activities. e previ-
ous illustration actually works well here too: e observing group of people induce
self-focus (Carver & Scheier1978), which initiates inner speech (“Why are these
people looking at me?”), which further amplies self-reection (“Perhaps what I’m
wearing is inappropriate?”), and so forth. Note that these possible causal directions are
not mutually exclusive, meaning that they can all be true. One can talk to oneself about
oneself (inner speech --> self-reection) in the morning (for example), become self-
aware and start talking to oneself as a result (self-reection --> inner speech) in the
aernoon, and engage in a mixture of these (inner speech <--> self-reection) in the
evening or throughout the day. Most of the empirical evidence and theoretical ideas
discussed in this chapter will pertain to the rst causal direction (inner speech -->
self-reection).
1 See Table 1 in Morin (2005, pp. 119–20) for several additional authors.

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I am by no mean endorsing an extreme view of this inner speech function. For
instance, I disagree with strong statements such as “Inner speech seems to be a pre-
requisite for awareness of an inner self” (Werning2010, p. 774) and “I talk (to myself)
therefore I know that I exist” (Schlinger2008, p. 60). For one thing, self-reection can
be produced by multiple other cognitive, non-cognitive, and social means, as described
in detail elsewhere (Morin2004). In addition, I explicitly acknowledge that some form
or level of self-reection is possible without inner speech. As a case in point, consider
pre-verbal infants and some non-human animals who at least exhibit bodily awareness
as measured by self-recognition (Amsterdam1972; Gallup1985). at is to say, inner
speech most likely is not required to achieve lower, more perceptual forms of
self-referential activities. e argument, however, is that higher, more conceptual
(abstract) pieces of self-information require self-verbalization in order to be captured
by the self (Morin & Hamper 2012). Perceptual (sensory) self-information results
from one’s direct experience with oneself (e.g., the body) or environmental stimuli
(e.g., other persons, mirrors) that identify the self. Conceptual self-information is
anything about the self that is not available to immediate perceptual experience.
Perceptual self-information such as one’s face during self-recognition, because it is
visual and concrete in nature, presumably does not need to be verbally labelled (e.g.,
“this is my face”) in order to be recognized as one’s own. Reection on more abstract
self-dimensions such as intentions however, possibly requires inner speech (e.g., “I
want to go shing”) to be fully brought to one’s attention (see Morin & Hamper 2012
for supporting evidence).
Note that inner speech use does not automatically guarantee the acquisition of
accurate self-information. People can engage in dysfunctional, self-deceptive self-talk,
distort or deny self-information for self-protective/enhancing purposes (Alicke &
Sedikides2009), and thus misrepresent their selves. People in general believe that they
genuinely know themselves, but research rather suggests they lack self-knowledge
given the signicant gap that exists between self-ratings of personality traits (for
example) and others’ ratings of those same traits (Vazire & Mehl2008). is being
said,it is likely that not using inner speech for introspective purposes will impede
self-reective activities and the development of a realistic and well-articulated
(i.e.,complex) self-concept (Morin & Joshi1990).
Some may propose that the idea of inner speech underlying self-reection is self-
evident and “goes without saying” (meaning, does not really deserve to be explicitly
stated). I beg to dier, as some psychologists do believe that language, and thus inner
speech, have nothing to do with self-awareness—e.g., those who locate the self in the
right mute hemisphere or propose that (non-verbal) primates are fully self-aware
(Keenan et al.2003). Indeed, Keenan and colleagues (2003, p. xxiii) famously stated
that “e idea that the highest form of consciousness depends on language is no longer
tenable”. ese authors base their claim on the belief that self-face recognition repre-
sents an adequate operationalization of self-reection (including access to one’s
thoughts) and that self-recognition is associated with right hemisphere activity. I have

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repeatedly argued elsewhere (e.g., Morin2010) that (1) self-recognition and self-
reection ought not to be equated, the former most likely indicating bodily awareness
only (Mitchell2002), and (2) self-reection is not selectively located in the right
hemisphere—if anything, it more importantly relies on le hemisphere activity, as
shown in a meta-analysis of numerous brain-imaging studies of self-reection (Denny
et al.2012).
At any rate, my view is that sometimes what seems to be obvious nonetheless needs
to be stated; besides, many dimensions to the problem of the relation between inner
speech and self-reection have not been properly addressed—for instance: what
evidence exists in support of this relation? What are the underlying mechanisms
explaining how self-reection and inner speech interact? I now turn my attention to
these two questions.
11.4 Empirical Evidence
In this section I present six lines of evidence in support of the self-reective functions
of inner speech: (1) positive correlations between measures of self-related constructs
and inner speech, (2) self-awareness decits following inner speech loss, (3) involve-
ment of the LIFG (main brain area generating inner speech) in self-reection tasks,
(4) frequent self-reported inner speech about the self, (5) inner speech role in awareness
of mind-wandering, and (6) the self as narrative.
11.4.1 Questionnaires
Several studies (e.g., Brinthaupt et al. 2009; Morin et al. 1993) report positive
signicantcorrelations between dierent measures of inner speech and self-related
constructs. To illustrate, Schneider (2002), Schneider and colleagues (2005), and
Siegrist (1995) observed a 0.50 correlation between the Inner Speech Scale (ISS)
andthe private subscale of the Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS; Fenigstein et al.1975).
In other words, people who frequently think about private aspects of the self (e.g.,
“I generally pay attention to my inner feelings”) oen talk to themselves about
themselves(e.g., “If I am not feeling well, I oen talk to myself about my state”). A more
modest (0.30) correlation exists between a measure of the activity of talking to
oneselfabout oneself (i.e., self-reective inner speech) and self-concept complexity
(Morin & Joshi1990): participants who describe themselves in great details tend to
talk to themselves about themselves more, and vice versa. Related to this, people who
score low on the Self-Concept Clarity Scale (Campbell et al.1996), a measure of the
extent to which the contents of an individual’s self-concept are clearly and condently
dened, internally consistent, and temporally stable, tend to score high on the self-
evaluative subscale of the Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire (McCarthy-Jones &
Fernyhough2011). deSousa and colleagues (2016) propose on that basis that people
who tend to struggle with their sense of self frequently evaluate themselves using
innerspeech.

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11.4.2 Self-reection decits following inner speech loss
Whereas the previous line of research does not entail causation, the observation that
inner speech loss leads to self-reection impairment does. In her 2006 book “My
stroke of insight”, Jill Bolte Taylor details her experience of suering from a stroke
which caused inner speech loss. A close inspection of her experience (Morin2009)
suggests that the loss of the ability to talk to herself caused a host of self-reection def-
icits such as a confused sense of individuality, problems retrieving autobiographical
memories, and lack of self-conscious emotions. A former aphasic patient (Moss1972,
p. 10, italics added) described his experience as follows:
I had lost the ability to converse with others, I had also lost the ability to engage in self-talk. In
other words, I did not have the ability to think about the future—to worry, to anticipate or
perceive it—at least not with words. us for the rst four or ve weeks aer hospitalization
I simply existed.
Helen Keller contracted an illness when very young which le her both deaf and
blind—thus incapable of developing normal language. She eventually received special
and sophisticated training, allowing her to acquire language skills aer several years of
mutism. She summed up her inner experiences before language development as
follows (in Salzen1998, p. 307): “Before my teacher came to me, I did not know that
Iam. I lived in a world that was a no world. . . When I learned the meaning of ‘I’ and
‘me’ and found that I was something, I began to think. en consciousness rst existed
for me.” Keller’s case does not explicitly mention inner speech, but the assumption is
that Helen did lack inner speech given that social (other-directed) speech precedes
self-directed (inner) speech (Vygotsky1943/1962). Lacking the former, as in Helen’s
case, most likely means she was lacking the latter as well. Note however that her situ-
ation is complicated by the fact that she was raised in total isolation—a potentially
important confounding variable.
11.4.3 LIFG/inner speech involvement in self-referential tasks
As indicated earlier (Section 11.2.2), the le inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) represents
one area thought to sustain inner speech activity. Morin & Hamper (2012) per-
formed a meta-analysis of 130 self-referential brain imaging studies in various
self-domains, including agency, self-recognition, emotions, personality traits, auto-
biographical memory, prospection, and judgments. A typical self-reection task asks
participants to decide if personality traits describe them or not. (Also see Section
11.2.1, last paragraph.) Specically, in Craik et al. study (1999), volunteers judged trait
adjectives under four separate PET scan conditions: (a) relevance to self, (b) relevance
to a well-known public gure, (c) social desirability, and (d) number of syllables. In our
meta-analysis we observed an activation of the LIFG (and thus, presumably, inner
speech use) in 55 percent of all studies reviewed. Note that a LIFG activation is reported
only in 16 percent of studies that do not involve self-reection, such as when attention
or perception tasks are employed (Cabeza & Nyberg2000). is represents strong

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evidence to the eect that inner speech is oen used by participants working on
various self-reection tasks. e highest LIFG activation rate (77 percent) was
observed in studies pertaining to the retrieval of autobiographical information—that
is, remembering one’s past. e LIFG was signicantly more recruited (64 percent)
during conceptual tasks (e.g., prospection, traits) than during perceptual tasks
(25 percent; agency and self-recognition). is suggests that whereas perceptual self-
dimensions (e.g., one’s face) can be consciously perceived without words, conceptual
self-aspects (e.g., autobiography; prospection) more likely demand verbalization in
order to be brought to consciousness, as discussed in Section 11.3. Note that I acknow-
ledge the possible alternative explanation that LIFG activation (and inner speech use)
may have to do with the conceptual nature of the tasks rather than with its being
self-referential per se.
11.4.4 Self-reported inner speech about the self
A growing number of thought sampling/listing studies show that people oen recruit
inner speech when thinking about the self. is observation obviously supports the
self-reective functions of inner speech. For example, when asked to list what they
typically talk to themselves about, participants report engaging in self-talk about
themselves more oen than any other topic in their lives such as their physical
andsocial environments (Duhnych et al.2017; Morin et al.2011). More specically,
university students report talking to themselves about (in decreasing order of
importance) their emotions, physical appearance, relationships, problems, food
intake, behavior, nancial situation, stress, performance, desires, education, beliefs,
others’ opinion of themselves, and goals. Comparable inner speech self-oriented
content was observed in a thought sampling study. Uttl and colleagues (2012) sent
eight random cell phone text messages per day for two weeks to ninety-six under-
graduate university students, each message asking them to report whether they were
talking to themselves, what they were talking to themselves about, how condent they
were in their report, and what activity they were engaged in. Participants responses
were coded using a previously developed coding scheme into specic inner speech
categories. Other studies report a substantial use of inner speech (together with mental
imagery) during autobiographical recall and prospection—that is, during mental time
travel (e.g., D’Argembeau et al.2014), which is consistent with what was just discussed
above in subsection 11.4.3. For example, in a thought sampling study, D’Argembeau
and colleagues (2011) observed more inner speech recruitment when participants
were engaged in action planning and decision-making, and more mental imagery use
when daydreaming and self-reassuring. ey also noted dierences in inner speech
ratings across types of future thoughts, with positive thoughts containing less inner
speech than both neutral and negative thoughts.
11.4.5 Inner speech and awareness of mind-wandering
A 2017 article by Bastian and colleagues presents evidence suggesting that inner
speech facilitates metacognition of mind-wandering episodes. Mind-wandering

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occurs when people experience thoughts not focused on a single topic for a long period
of time, particularly when they are engaged in an attention-demanding task (Diaz
etal.2014). Typically, people are unaware of experiencing mind-wandering episodes.
e authors report three experiments. Experiment 1 relied on articulatory suppres-
sion, where participants were asked to repeat “a-b-c” aloud, which obviously interferes
with inner speech. Results showed that articulatory suppression, compared to a foot-
tapping control condition, decreased the number of spontaneous reports of mind-
wandering while performing a main task consisting in pressing a space bar as fast as
possible in response to pre-selected digits. Also, self-caught (spontaneous) mind-
wandering episodes, which are by denition aware episodes, were reported to be more
verbal than probe-caught reports of mind-wandering. In Experiment 2, participants
were required to press a space bar as fast as possible in response to various words and
images but to withhold their response when presented with one no-go target concept
randomly picked for each participants. Critically, the word/picture ratio diered so
that some participants were exposed to many more words than images, and vice versa.
Greater exposure to words was designed to increase verbal working memory and inner
speech activity. Random probes asked volunteers if they were currently aware of
having a mind-wandering episode. Results showed that an increase in verbal process-
ing (and verbal working memory/inner speech activation) did not aect performance
nor the amount of mind-wandering but did increase awareness of mind-wandering. In
Experiment 3, participants were randomly probed throughout the day in their natural
environment using a thought sampling smartphone application. Probes asked partici-
pants if they were mind-wandering at the instant they were interrupted, to what extent
they were aware of experiencing a mind-wandering episode, and if they were thinking
in words or images. Results showed that awareness of mind-wandering reports made
on smartphones positively correlated with inner speech vividness, but not with visual
vividness. Together, these ndings support the view that inner speech, unlike visual
imagery, facilitates awareness of mind-wandering. Here, meta-awareness of mind-
wandering episodes is taken as a specic case of self-reection.
11.4.6 e self as narrative
One theoretical approach to the self which is consistent with the self-reection view of
inner speech is Narrative Psychology, alternatively known as Narrative Identity and
Dialogical Self (see Bruner1996; D’Argembeau et al.2014; Harre1983; Hermans1996;
McAdams & McLean2013). e basic premise of Narrative Psychology is that human
beings make sense of their personal experiences by constructing stories about them
and narrating (telling) them to oneself and others; part of the process (less pertinent
for us here) includes listening to stories of others. Self-storytelling allows one to recon-
structs one’s autobiographical past and imagine one’s future (again, mental time
travelas discussed in Section 11.4.4), which leads to a sense of unity, purpose, and
understanding of the self (D’Argembeau et al.2014). Although it is implicitly under-
stood that this narrating/telling of self-stories recruits language and inner speech,
Hermans (1996) establishes an explicit connection by stating that we engage in internal

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dialoguesin order to better understand others’ possible views of ourselves (also see
Blachowicz1999).
Indeed, some studies show that it is possible to improve self-reective skills in
psychiatric populations through dialogic self-therapy. To illustrate, Lysaker and
colleagues (2007, 2011) present case studies of schizophrenic patients undergoing
therapy aimed at increasing the use of dialogues—as opposed to monologues—with
themselves. Schizophrenic patients are known for self-reection decits (Van der Meer
et al.2009) and the dialogic self-therapy encourages them to perceive themselves under
many dierent second-person perspectives, thus improving self-reection and self-
knowledge. Treatment in the Lysaker et al. (2007) study involved forty-ve- minute
weekly sessions for more than thirty-two months. During these sessions, the client was
encouraged to make his own sense of his life story by having the therapist act as an
audience for and with whom he was constructing the story. e therapist’s main goal
was to use his voice as an aid to the client in being able to think about his own thinking
and adopt the position as author of his life. Results showed increases in scores on the
Metacognitive Assessment Scale (MAS; Semerari et al.2003) following a thirty-two-month
dialogic self-therapy treatment. e MAS measures the following abilities: thinking
about one’s own and others’ mental states, seeing the world as existing with others having
independent motives, and implementing eective strategies to cope with problems. As
such, the MAS does not represent a direct measure of self-reection but is linked to it.
Related to Narrative Psychology is the study of multicultural identity formation, an
approach which looks at how multicultural individuals manage their dierent iden-
tities within the self. Multicultural people oen need to navigate the dierent norms
and values associated with their multiple (and potentially incompatible) cultural
identities, which obviously involves self-reective skills. Interestingly, individuals
withintegrated (as opposed to compartmentalized) cultural identities report greater
narrative coherence as measured using a qualitative coding scheme developed by
Yampolsky and colleagues (2013). Narrative coherence involves a rich narration of
participants’ cultural life story characterized by well-structured stories and containing
a lot of expressions of emotions, mentions of attempts at integration, as well as context-
ual information. In short, self-stories of integrated multicultural individuals are
nuanced and complex, suggesting that they were created through extensive self-talk
about one’s diverse cultural experiences.
11.5 eoretical Considerations
In this last section I address the following two questions raised by Churchland (1983,
p. 88): “What is it about self-consciousness such that it requires linguistic repre-
sentations, and what is it about language such that it brings about the special capacity
for self-consciousness?” In other words, what is the theoretical nature of the link
between inner speech and self-reection? I will suggest that (1) inner speech can
reproduce social mechanisms leading to self-reection, (2) self-reection represents a

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problem-solving process that is greatly facilitated by the use of inner speech, (3) inner
speech can “translate” self-information into a verbal representation which creates a
wedge within the self that makes self-observation possible, and (4) verbal labelling via
inner speech allows the use of a rich vocabulary about oneself which helps to dieren-
tiate between subtle physiological sensations and emotional responses.2
11.5.1 Inner speech can reproduce social mechanisms leading
to self-reection
As discussed in Section 11.3, there are multiple mechanisms that can all lead to
self-reection (Morin2004). Among these are social mechanisms, as proposed by
Mead (1934) and Cooley (1902). According to Mead, the presence of others motivates
the self to take their mental perspective in order to obtain an objective point of view on
oneself, which then produces self-reection. For example, John is reading an anti-
abortion pamphlet (written by others) and tries to understand the opinion presented
(others’ perspective), which makes him question his own view on the topic—do I agree
with this? What is my view? (self-reection). Mead agrees that this social mechanism
can be internalized and greatly expanded by the use of inner speech. e self can
engage in ctional conversations with itself, verbalizing dierent—and thus more
objective—points of view about oneself (Morin2005). To illustrate, one could self-
verbalize “is driver remained calm and composed despite being abruptly cut o by
that other driver (other’s perspective). I would have lost it! (self-reection) Yes, I am
impatient in that type of situation. . . (self-knowledge)” Furthermore, the self can talk to
itself imagining the Generalized Other—the internalized perspective of others (Athens
1994): “My Dad really wants me to do well in school, he’s nancially helping me getting
an education (other’s perspective) . . . I just unk this exam, I feel shameful (self-reection),
he won’t like it!” us inner speech can duplicate this social comparison mechanism
(Festinger1954) and makes it possible to expand self-reection outside of social
interactions. Quite simply, without self-talk one could hardly become self-aware
outside of social situations (Morin & DeBlois1989). My view is that the social world
represents a necessary but insucient condition for the emergence of full-blown
human self-reection and self-knowledge. What starts as an interpersonal mode of
acquisition of self-information gradually transforms itself into an intrapersonal mech-
anism of self-reection. is is compatible with Vygotsky’s view (1943/1962), s ee below.
Another social mechanism known to induce self-focus was suggested by Cooley:
reected appraisals refer to verbal comments people make about one’s characteristics
and behaviors; these allow the self to learn about itself and produce self-reection. To
illustrate, Mike can tell John that he is a hard-working person, or on the contrary, that
he is lazy. If many dierent individuals all tell John the same thing, he might be inclined
to believe them and incorporate this self-information into his self-concept, especially
if the information is positive and in accordance with John’s current self-view. Indeed,
perceived inaccurate (and negative) social feedback is likely to motivate the target
2 See Morin & Everett (1990b) for a h proposal—inner speech as an internal mirror.

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to resist incorporating this information into one’s self-concept. As Eichstaedt and
colleagues state (2002, p. 290, my italics), “incoming information about the self is
initially comprehended and believed . . . and results in positive or negative aect
consistent with the valence of the information. is minimally cognitive stage is fol-
lowed by reective scrutiny involving a comparison with the self-concept”. Surely, this
reective scrutiny recruits inner speech: if John is accused of missing work because of
lazinesshe could very well tell himself “I’m not lazy—I was sick in bed on that day.”3
I propose here that this second social mechanism can also be internalized, repro-
duced, and thus extended, by inner speech. e self can re-address (and re-evaluate, as
seen above) appraisals from others by using inner speech (Morin2005). People’s
observations and inferences about one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (e.g., “you
are a hard-working person”) might imprint on one’s inner speech a tendency to address
such self-informative remarks to oneself (e.g., “I am a hard-working person”).
Although no direct empirical evidence exists in support of this idea, consider Burnett’s
(1996) work, which shows that children who perceive that signicant others talk
positively to them appear to have higher positive self-talk and lower negative self-talk
than children who report that signicant others say negative things to them. Also,
children who perceive that signicant others say negative things to them appear to
have higher negative self-talk and lower positive self-talk than children who report
that signicant others say positive things to them.
e aforementioned ideas pertaining to the internalization of social mechanisms
involved in self-reection can be linked to a Vygotskyan conception of inner speech
(Vygotsky1943/1962). Fernyhough (e.g.,2008;2016) has recently developed a model
based on Vygotsky’s work where the understanding of other minds, and by extension of
one’s own mind, relies on social and internalized dialogue. e emergence of language
and the child’s gradual participation in linguistic exchanges mark the beginning of a
progression from social dialogue, via the intermediate stage of private speech, towards
completely internalized inner dialogue. e resulting dialogic forms of thought play an
important role in children’s capacity to adopt and operate with the internalized perspec-
tives of others. In a secondary developmental pathway, conversations about mental
states with caregivers help children to learn the correct usage of mental-state terms and
concepts, allowing them ultimately to enter into eective ways of explaining and pre-
dicting the behavior of others—and again by extension, their own behavior.
11.5.2 Self-reection as a problem-solving process
As discussed in Section 1.2, inner speech has been shown to play a positive role
inproblem-solving. More specically, Kendall and & (1981) have identied four
3 Some readers may suggest that in addition to inner speech articulated in natural language, some other
forms of “language of thought” such as mentalese could perform comparable self-reective operations. I do
not deny this possibility, which would entail that other cognitive systems might participate in self-awareness.
is is consistent with an important point made earlier (Section 11.3), where I explicitly acknowledged
that self-reection can be produced by multiple cognitive, non-cognitive, and social means in addition to
inner speech.

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categories of eective inner speech in problem-solving: (1) a precise denition of the
problem (“OK. What’s the problem? What am I supposed to do?”), (2) an eective
approach to the problem (“I should nd a strategy to solve this problem”), (3) a main-
tenance of one’s focus on the problem (“No, that’s not important. I must focus on this
instead”), and (4) a progress evaluation that includes praise (“Good! I did it!”) or
strategy readjustment (“No, that’s not the way to go. at’s OK—I must try again and
do that instead”).
I suggest that the self can be conceived of as a “problem” to be solved (e.g., Who am
I? What did I just do? How do I feel?) and that inner speech greatly facilitates this
problem-solving task, as follows (Morin2005): (1) clear denition of the problem:
“How did I do?”, (2) optimal approach to the problem: “I will try to remember what
happened and everything I did in detail”, (3) problem-solving verbalizations: “e rst
thing I did was Z. en X happened and I then said W”, and (4) self-evaluative
comments: “Good! I’m getting somewhere!”, or self-directive notes: “I don’t need to
take this into consideration, it’s not pertinent.”
11.5.3 Self-distancing/decoupling
A third way of looking at the nature of the connection between self-talk and self-
reection is based on the notion that the former can “translate” self-information into a
verbal representation which creates a distance between the observer (the self) and
self-information, which in turn facilitates self-observation (for related ideas see
Bernstein et al.2015; Neuman & Nave2010; Puchalska-Wasyl2016; Zelazo 2004).
Abasic principle is that an observation is possible only if there exists a distance (a wedge)
between the observer and the observed thing (Johnstone1970). Indeed, as the popular
saying goes, one won’t be able to see the forest if only looking at individual trees—
enough of a distance must exist between the observer and the forest for it to be per-
ceived. By logical extension, self-observation is possible only if there exists a gap
between the individual and any potentially observable self-aspect. Verbalizing to one-
self “I feel happy” creates a redundancy within the self because what was an emotion of
happiness is now re-presented to the self in words. Hence instead of only one thing, the
raw emotion of happiness (the presentation), we now have two elements: the raw emo-
tion and its verbal re-presentation. When the self only experiences the raw emotion (or
whatever else) it is too close to it, too immersed in the experience, to really perceive it.
e verbal representation (via inner speech) produces a redundancy which also cre-
ates more “psychological” distance between that particular piece of self-information
and the self. I postulate that this distance caused by self-talk signicantly facilitates
self-observation and the acquisition of self-information.
I further propose that there are dierent degrees of distance, where on one hand,
distancing from the immediate experience is allowed by the creation of the verbal
representation itself, and on the other hand, distance is achieved by certain aspects of
this representation, such as the grammatical subject chosen; verbal labelling per se
would produce distance and the use of ‘you’ would increase it further. Indeed, recent

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research by Kross and colleagues (2014) shows that using “you” instead of “I” when
talking to oneself enhances self-distancing as discussed above. In one of their studies,
the team asked participants to analyze their feelings (e.g., experimentally induced
anger) using rst-person pronouns (e.g., I) or non-rst-person pronouns (e.g., you).
Participants were also invited to indicate the degree to which they adopted the visual
perspective of an observer as they reected on their feelings. Results showed that
volunteers in the non-rst-person group displayed higher levels of visual self-distancing
(mentally looking at oneself as an observer) than participants in the rst-person
group. is suggests that in general, people use non-rst-person pronouns (and their
own name) when thinking about other people. us, when people use these parts of
speech to refer to themselves (“You feel happy, John”, as opposed to “I feel happy”), it
enhances self-distancing by leading them to think about themselves as though they
were somebody else.
11.5.4 Verbal labelling
One last possible explanation as to why and how inner speech produces self-reection
can be stated as follows: verbal labelling of self-characteristics, inner experiences,
andbehaviors allows the self to deploy a rich vocabulary about oneself which helps
dierentiate subtle physiological sensations and emotional responses (Gibson &
Foster2007; Morin2005). It is one thing to say to oneself “I feel sad”; all that is learned
about oneself by using the verbal label “sad” is that one. . . is sad. Consider this in
contrast: “I feel sad. . . actually, I also feel disappointed. . . and possibly angry.” e add-
itional use of adjectives through verbal labelling leads to a richer understanding of
what the person is emotionally experiencing. Lindquist and colleagues (2015) propose
that language increases attention to sensory information (e.g., a beating heart) and
produces feedback to infuse self-perceptions with additional information (e.g., a fear
perception), causing a discrete experience of emotion to become conscious. is pro-
posal is based on solid empirical evidence. For instance, when participants experience
emotions in a fMRI scanner, they not only have increased activity in limbic/paralimbic
brain regions that are associated with emotional processing—they also exhibit activity
in lateral prefrontal brain regions associated with language processing.
I submit that this verbal labelling eect applies to all aspects of the self, not just
emotions. To illustrate for behavior, John can say to himself “I ran faster than all the
others”; he could also continue “My movements were more precise, I was more agile
than my competitors.” A stronger account of this idea is that one cannot actually
become fully aware of some self-aspects (e.g., attitudes) without naming (verbally
labelling) them. For example, how could one realize that one is holding anti-Semitic
attitudes or hedonistic values without having to verbally label these by saying to oneself
“I believe in antisemitism/hedonism”? As Bem (1972) would argue, however, one can
learn things about oneself just by observing one’s behavior (self-perception theory;
“All I do is play golf and drink beer. . . I like to have fun. . . I am a hedonistic person”).
But note that (1) this process of self-perception itself most likely activates inner speech,

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as per my example, and (2) verbal labelling is still required for the person to conclude
that “I am hedonistic.” us it seems that what is important is not the process of
labelling itself, but the fact that people are able to tag their mental states with a larger
number of more nuanced labels.
11.6 Conclusion
In this chapter I have presented several empirical observations and theoretical consid-
erations in support of the view that inner speech serves important self-reective
functions. In doing so, I have hopefully made it clear that inner speech is involved in
various other self-related processes in addition to self-reection per se—self- regulation,
self-description, self-evaluation, self-concept formation, ToM, mental time travel, and
more. I compare inner speech to a ashlight used to nd one’s way through a dark
room: without light, approximate perception is still possible (e.g., by using touch to
discern objects), but perception becomes much more vivid and precise when one
putsthe ashlight on. By analogy, one can learn about oneself without inner speech
(in the dark, e.g., via reected appraisals), but self-reection and the resulting self-
knowledge are considerably facilitated when one talks to oneself about oneself—when
the light is on.
is view of inner speech as a cognitive self-reective device raises some key ques-
tions in clinical, philosophical, and comparative psychology. I leave the reader with
these. Are self-reection decits observed in autistic and schizophrenic individuals
associated with inner speech impairment? Some current research suggests so
(Williams & Jarrold2010). Are there two independent streams of (self-) consciousness
in the isolated hemispheres of split-brain patients? I propose that there are two unequal
streams, the le (verbal) one being signicantly more self-aware that the right (mute)
one (Morin2001). Are non-human animals, chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants, and
magpies in particular, self-aware and able to engage in ToM, as some have claimed on
the basis of self-recognition skills observed in these animals (see Soler et al.2014)?
Since these creatures all lack inner speech, my opinion is that they certainly do not
exhibit full-blown human self-reective capacities (Morin2010).
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