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Up to half of the earth's population doesn't have an inner monologue, up to half of the earth has never had a shower thought

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Submitted ⁨⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨showerthoughts@lemmy.world⁩

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  • CH3DD4R_G0BL1N@sh.itjust.works ⁨47⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    Tangentially related, but the fox game show “1% club” is, perhaps unintentionally, a fascinating demonstration of how vastly different people think through logic problems.

    The premise is the contestants go through a series of questions already asked to a sample of Americans and progress in order of how “difficult” they are based on how many got them wrong.

    The interesting part comes when there can be a significant gap in what I perceive the difficulty to be between questions. Sometimes I may have trouble with an “easy” one but get a significantly “tougher” one no problem.

    It seems like lunacy to me, but all it really means most times is the format or mechanics of the logic needed for the answer is just more natural to me than the majority of the sample.

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  • kirkoman@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Google gave me mostly AI slop and pop psychology, but this article is an in-depth summary of the literature on the topic of inner speech, for anyone interested (and dedicated - it’s long and very technical).

    It doesn’t seem to justify dichotomizing people into those who “have it” and those who don’t. Research looks mostly focused on what cognitive or developmental purpose it serves.

    Inner speech can be defined as the subjective experience of language in the absence of overt and audible articulation. This definition is necessarily simplistic: as the following will demonstrate, experiences of this kind vary widely in their phenomenology, their addressivity to others, their relation to the self, and their similarity to external speech.

    So, it’s on a spectrum, highly subjective, and difficult to talk about with precision.

    I personally do not normally think in words, but I certainly rehearse/relive conversations. I also complain to myself with words when I am really miserable, I think it’s comforting to “say it out loud” (inside). Do I have an inner monologue?

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    • SassyRamen@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      You just described how you monologue like a villian in your head, so yeah you’re monologueing xD

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  • Mothra@mander.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Just because you don’t have an inner monologue doesn’t mean you are incapable of thought, or showerthoughts if we’re getting specific

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    • HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Correct, a lack of inner speech isn’t the same as an absence of thought

      It just seems like a true shower thought requires a narration to get so incredibly off tangent that it amounts to more than a simple epiphany

      Like Mitch Hedberg, he is a great example of someone who let their inner speech run free

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      • Mothra@mander.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        mander.xyz/post/20289088

        I’d still argue against that. I’ve had one true showerthought and it didn’t manifest as monologue, even though I do have an internal monologue. I had a concept and images for it. I spent some time trying to put it into words.

        I still don’t see how a showerthought (or any thought) has to have a verbal origin in the thinker’s mind; I would argue any internal monologue is but a secondary step after a thought has occurred. I’ve never heard of anyone being unable to predict what their own internal monologue is saying, and I’ve never heard of anyone being unable to make quick decisions because they had to first hear a command in their minds.

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  • idiomaddict@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I process thoughts visually, as typed text. It’s like a fucking ticker tape when I get going having random thoughts and I definitely experience shower thoughts.

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  • Opinionhaver@feddit.uk ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I refuse to believe this statistic. The only way to study this is by asking people and I bet most simply aren’t aware that they do have it. I didn’t pay much attention to it either untill I started meditating and now I’m painfully aware of it.

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    • HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      In addition to in-depth interviews, one of the primary methods used in the study was for volunteers to carry a timer that would go off randomly and they were to journal what they were thinking at the time

      The thoughts of someone without an inner monologue are not the same as someone with an inner monologue

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      • Opinionhaver@feddit.uk ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        That’s still just asking people, which isn’t exactly the most scientific method. If you were to stop me and ask what I was thinking, a lot of the time I wouldn’t be able to tell you - but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking. Thinking without being consciously aware of it is basically what I’m doing all day, every day. It’s mostly when I try to just be and let the world come to me that I become aware of how quickly I get lost in thought.

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  • MinorLaceration@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Do people without an inner monologue “hear” the words they read as they read them?

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    • modeler@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Many people do not hear as they read. In fact the skill of speed-reading depends on turning the auditory experience off:

      There are three types of reading:

      • Subvocalization: sounding out each word internally, as reading to oneself. This is the slowest form of reading.
      • Auditory reading: hearing out the read words. This is a faster process.
      • Visual reading: understanding the meaning of the word, rather than sounding or hearing. This is the fastest process.

      Subvocalization readers (Mental readers) generally read at approximately 250 words per minute, auditory readers at approximately 450 words per minute and visual readers at approximately 700 words per minute. Proficient readers are able to read 280–350 wpm without compromising comprehension.

      From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading

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  • SolidShake@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I don’t believe it

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    • HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      You don’t have to. It’s a thoroughly researched study, your belief in its existence is irrelevant.

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      • Acamon@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I think you are completely misrepresenting the literature in the field. There has been decades of research on inner monologues, but whether anyone truly has no inner monologue is still a matter of debate, and suggesting that it could be as much as 50% is absolutely wild.

        One recent example is Nedergaard and Lupyan (2024), who used questionnaires on 1,037 participants and found no one who reported a complete lack of inner speech. They did show a link between lower frequency of internal speech and lower performance on sole verbal cognitive tasks.

        But this was frequently misreported in popular science news, which may be where you got the idea. For example, Science Daily’s headline “People without an inner voice have poorer verbal memory” and subheading “Between 5-10 per cent of the population do not experience an inner voice” certainly make some bold claims (although still well below your “up to 50%” statistic). But just a few lines into the article it’s been rephrase as “between 5-10 per cent of the population do not have the same experience of an inner voice”. This is more accurate, as all studies agree that there is a variety of experiences of inner voices / monologues, but a different experience is not the same as an absence.

        In another comment you make reference to the experience sampling study (where a buzzer would sound and participants would record whether they were experiencing an inner monologue) which I assume is the work of Heavey and Hurlburt. It’s true that they claim that 5 of their 30 participants recorded no instances of inner voice, but let’s be clear about what the experimental procedure was: the participant would turn on the buzzer, which would buzz at a random time (an average of every 30 minutes) and the study was based on two periods of five samples. So, ten data points collected over approx five hours.

        Even people with strong inner monologues report different frequencies of inner speech depending on their activities. Many people do not experience inner speech when actively engaging in other verbal activity - talking with friends, watching a video; while quiet focused activities such as golf show much higher reporting of inner speech. So the absence for five individuals of any inner speech during those ten particular samples is in no sense equievlant to “16% of peole have no inner monologue”. Indeed even the study’s authors acknowledge “it is possible that these participants may all have actually had quite similar inner experiences; it is merely the reports of those experiences that differed.”

        Tldr: I think you’re making some very wild claims about this subject, without posting sources. No significant study I know of claims that any sizable percentage of the population have no inner voice, (although there certainly is an interesting variety in how frequent and clearly it is experienced.)

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      • Opinionhaver@feddit.uk ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Internal monologue is entirely a subjective experience, and I don’t think there’s any other way to study it than by asking people. Just because someone isn’t consciously aware of it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Just like if we asked people whether they have a blind spot in their visual field, everyone would say no - and everyone would be wrong.

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  • JackLSauce@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I distinctly recall thinking inner monologues were a “neat idea” after seeing them on TV as a child and thinking it would be a useful skill to learn. I never did though

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  • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I was today years old when I learned that not many people don’t have an inner monologue. The human body is so fascinating.

    Oddly enough, if I don’t take my ADHD meds, I tend to talk to myself out loud a lot because my inner monologue gets kind of “muffled” in the “noise” and I rely on it very heavily to think through.

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    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      when I learned

      You didn’t learn anything…

      You saw a random social media post and instantly believed what it said

      What the fuck is wrong with people?

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      • HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Maybe other people have read this research before as I have

        Maybe that’s what’s wrong with them

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  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Is it just quiet all the time?

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    • idiomaddict@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Nah, I get background music because I don’t need “sound” for my thoughts. Generally it’s nice, sometimes it’s baby shark

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  • 200ok@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I can’t tell whether I’m envious or scared

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  • GooberEar@lemmy.wtf ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I think it’s more than half, and I think the other half just touches themselves in private areas too taboo to mention on a Christian oriented site like Lemmy. Let’s just say, stay away from the devil’ jewels kiddos.

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    • Mothra@mander.xyz ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      You’re in the right lemmy instance I see

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