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I recently dove into what happens physiologically to the body when inner speech is taking place. Apparently, the larynx is making tiny muscular movements when that little voice inside of your head is talking. In cases of damage to the larynx, would inner speech also be damaged?

Below is a partial abstract of our recent study.  The inner speech sentences were self-timed by the subject.  We're looking for a physical (EEG) measure of sentence onset and offset to calculate rate of inner speech. 

ABSTRACT.  The rate expanded inner speech and outer speech was compared in 20 typical adults.  Participants generated and timed spontaneous sentences with expanded inner speech and outer speech following the instruction to say “the first thing that comes to mind.”   The rate of expanded inner speech was slightly, but significantly, faster (0.6 seconds) than the rate of outer speech.  The findings supported the hypothesis that expanded inner speech was faster than outer speech because of the time required to move the articulators in the latter.  Physical measures of speaking rate are needed to validate self-timed measures. 

Thanks for any input. 

I am looking for studies that investigate the neural mechanisms of inner speech. PubMed searches only seem to produce studies on hallucinations in schizophrenia. I wonder if there are studies on everyday inner speech, i.e. thought. 

                                        UPDATE (SEPTEMBER 2017)

TITLE: The Rate of Verbal Thought:  An Hypothesis

AUTHOR:   Ronald Netsell, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Missouri State University, Springfield, MO

The purpose of this report is to develop the hypothesis that the rate of verbal thought is no faster than the rate of inner speech or speech aloud.  There is prima-facie evidence that inner speech and speech aloud are direct reflections of verbal thought.  Why else would you say “That’s not what I meant” after hearing what you said?  Or, “I don’t realize it until I hear it.”   This hypothesis was published in 1959 in an article entitled “Evidence that 'thinking aloud' constitutes an externalization of inner speech” (Benjafield, 1969).  Others have discussed this hypothesis (Morin, 2009; Glass, 2013).     

It’s important to distinguish two types of inner speech: expanded and condensed (Ferneyhough, 2044).   Expanded inner speech refers to word-for-word production, while condensed inner speech is fragmented, rapidly crossing topics with one word.  Interestingly, and in context of the present report, these two types also have been referred to as “willful voluntary thought” and “verbal mind wandering”, respectively (Perrone-Bertolotti et.al, 2014).  Apparently, these authors assumed that their types of inner speech represented verbal thought.  The block diagram of Figure 1 distinguishes verbal from nonverbal thought.    The idea that the rate of expanded inner speech (willful voluntary thought) was the same as the "rate of verbal thought" arose our recent findings (Netsell et al, 2016).  Participants were instructed to “say the first thing that comes to mind.”  Although this instruction was not intentionally designed to elicit verbal thought (thinking with words),

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Insert Figure 1 about here

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it appears to have done so.    We found that expanded inner speech was 600 msecs faster than speech aloud (p=.0002). We hypothesized that speech aloud was slower because of the time it takes to move the articulators (lips, tongue, etc).  This hypothesis has been criticized (e.g. Glass, 2013; Ghitza 2016?).

These findings suggest the rate of neural processing is the same for expanded inner speech and speech aloud.  Why wouldn't the rate neural processing of verbal thought be the same (~5.0 syllables/second)?  We listen to our verbal thought on-line as we're talking aloud (speaking without 'thinking'). If what we say aloud doesn't match what we’re thinking verbally, we'll say something like "That's not what I meant to say." Then, revise what's said aloud. Obviously, the hypothesis that we think no faster than we talk will be very difficult to test empirically.

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REFERENCES       

Benjafield, J. (1969)  Evidence that 'thinking aloud' constitutes an externalization of inner speech” Psychonomic Science 15(2):83-84.

 Morin, A. (2009).  Inner Speech and Consciousness. In: William P. Banks, (Editor), Encyclopedia of Consciousness. Oxford: Elsevier 389-402.

Glass, J. (2013).  A neurobiological model of ‘inner speech’ for conscious thought.  Journal of Consciousness Studies 20:7-14.

Ferneyhough, C.(2004).  Alien voices and inner dialogue: towards a developmental account of auditory verbal hallucinations. New Ideas in Psychology 22:49–68

Perrone-Bertolotti, M. . Rapin,L, J.-P. Lachauxc,d, M. Baciua,b, H. Lœvenbruck (2014). What is that little voice inside my head? Inner speech phenomenology, its role in cognitive performance, and its relation to self-monitoring.  Behavioral Brain Research 261:220–239.

Netsell, R., Kleinsasser, S., & Daniel, T. (2016).  The rate of expanded inner speech during spontaneous sentence productions.  Perceptual & Motor Skills 123(2): 383-393.

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­­­­­­­­Figure 1. A block diagram model representing the process of transforming thought into words. Thought can be verbal or nonverbal. Verbal thought can be expressed aloud without conscious thought (speaking without thinking). Alternatively, verbal thought can be expressed consciously as expanded inner speech i.e. talking to yourself inside your head (Netsell et al, 2016). 

I, Prasanna P, am currently pursuing my final year of B.Sc.Psychology at Thiagarajar College of Arts and Science, Madurai. I am doing research on "The Role Of Inner Speech In Fostering Resilience Among Mental Health Professionals" under the guidance of Prof. Renisha Jerine R, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Thiagarajar College, Madurai.

Kindly, spare your valuable time to fill out this form.

Thank you.

I am investigating the possibility of gaining first person data on inner speech

Speaking about a dream has certain attributes which make it interesting from the point of view of professional voice and speech training for stage performers:

Therefore, speaking about dreams could be examined as a tool in performer‘s voice training. The aim here is to find out, if this question (or a related question) is or has been dealt with already.

Hi, I have an assignment using a 5-point Likert scale (about frequency) to test the frequency of self reported inner speech and wether it correlates with language proficiency (I’ll use language test scores for that). I have no background in statistics and I’ve never done this sort of thing before. How can I analyze and interpret my data, and what tests do I need to use? My sample size isn’t big, it’s rather small. I googled it but all the stuff I read presume I have background knowledge, and I don’t.

Dear colleague,

As a young pathologist, my teachers stressed me: "You have to dictate findings at real time - formulate what do you see - do not construct definitions and do not think about it much". I commemorate this advice every day. 

There are probably three main methods how to create autopsy protocols:

1. Direct dictation of findings while performing an autopsy (to a secretary, to a colleague, on a Dictaphone, etc.).

2. Delayed stylization after the autopsy (by heart with a help of notes, sketches, photographs, etc.).

3. Usage of checklists and pre-printed autopsy protocols.

In my opinion, the method number one is the best, as you directly convert perceptions into inner speech and formulations. It may be demanding on your concentration and vocabulary, but it is the most direct and reliable method. I think...

Allan Watts asserted that the notion of nothing has bugged people for centuries, especially in the Western world.

'We have a saying in Latin, Ex nihilo nihil fit, which means "out of nothing comes nothing." It has occurred to me that this is a fallacy of tremendous proportions. It lies at the root of all our common sense, not only in the West, but in many parts of the East as well. It manifests in a kind of terror of nothing, a put-down on nothing, and a put-down on everything associated with nothing, such as sleep, passivity, rest, and even the feminine principles. But to me nothing — the negative, the empty — is exceedingly powerful. I would say, on the contrary, you can't have something without nothing. Image nothing but space, going on and on, with nothing in it forever. But there you are imagining it, and you are something in it. The whole idea of there being only space, and nothing else at all is not only inconceivable but perfectly meaningless, because we always know what we mean by contrast.'

Martin Heidegger has a different approach to the notion of nothing:

'All things, and we with them, sink into indifference. But not in the sense that everything simply disappears. Rather, in the very drawing away from us as such, things turn toward us. This drawing away of everything in its totality, which in angst is happening all around us, haunts us. There is nothing to hold on to. The only thing that remains and comes over us--in this drawing away of everything--is this "nothingness.'

Hegel includes the notion of nothing in his comprehensive philosophical system: Being-Nothing-Becoming. The materialist interpretation of Hegel’s method understands that the outer form of any thing we perceive is its Being, and the opposite which can be deduced from it, (as Hegel deduced Nothing from Being), is its own inner content, which manifests the essence of the thing.

Sartre disagrees with Hegel that Being and Nothingness are opposite, or are opposed as thesis and antithesis respectively. Sartre says that Nothingness is the contradiction, and not the opposite, of Being. Nothingness is logically subsequent to Being. Sartre also argues that consciousness of Being means consciousness of Nothingness. For Sartre, we are our own Nothingness, and we bring Nothingness into the world. Sartre confronts Nothingness, and embraces it as part of human reality.

Dialectics, for Lacan, is centered around the nothingness of the subject of speech and around the negations that sustain this nothingness. Man's being is nothing outside language and speech. The subject of speech is irrecoverably split. He is the void between the signifiers of speech, his identity is nothing more than a function of their interrelations.