1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:06,480 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey 2 00:00:06,559 --> 00:00:09,840 Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam Here, have you ever thought 3 00:00:10,039 --> 00:00:13,880 Speaker 1: about how you think? Do you? For example, tell yourself, 4 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:17,000 Speaker 1: don't forget to take out the trash, Then hours later, 5 00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:19,640 Speaker 1: when you hear the garbage truck rolling by, think how 6 00:00:19,720 --> 00:00:23,000 Speaker 1: could I have forgotten that? Is there a constant talking 7 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:25,479 Speaker 1: to self throughout the day going on in your head. 8 00:00:26,720 --> 00:00:29,639 Speaker 1: A lot of people do use language based chatter to 9 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:33,760 Speaker 1: organize and focus their thoughts. However, it turns out that 10 00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:37,440 Speaker 1: some people don't have this kind of inner monologue at all. Instead, 11 00:00:37,479 --> 00:00:41,239 Speaker 1: they may rely more on visualization, for instance, seeing themselves 12 00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:44,280 Speaker 1: placing the trash bag in the bin. Others employ a 13 00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:48,280 Speaker 1: combination of these techniques. People on both sides of this 14 00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:51,920 Speaker 1: inner monologue divide have a hard time imagining another way 15 00:00:51,920 --> 00:00:54,080 Speaker 1: of being, to the point that it's sort of freaked 16 00:00:54,120 --> 00:00:56,800 Speaker 1: everyone out. Back in February, when the concept was passing 17 00:00:56,800 --> 00:01:00,960 Speaker 1: around the Internet, we spoke with one Rustle Hurlbert, a 18 00:01:01,040 --> 00:01:05,400 Speaker 1: psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. For decades, 19 00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:10,160 Speaker 1: he's been doing experiments on people's inner experiences. There are thoughts, feelings, 20 00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:15,080 Speaker 1: and sensations regarding the online kerfuffle over inner speech haves 21 00:01:15,160 --> 00:01:17,840 Speaker 1: and have not, he chuckled a bit and said he 22 00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:20,959 Speaker 1: frequently hears people claim that they have an ever present 23 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:24,319 Speaker 1: inner monologue, but his experiments show that this is not 24 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:28,520 Speaker 1: always true. But rather than argue with them, he says, well, 25 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:33,080 Speaker 1: let's find out. His tests began long ago as a 26 00:01:33,120 --> 00:01:36,560 Speaker 1: graduate student in the early nineteen seventies. He began wondering 27 00:01:36,640 --> 00:01:42,120 Speaker 1: how scientists could investigate subjects pristine inner experiences, experiences that 28 00:01:42,160 --> 00:01:45,360 Speaker 1: are in your present consciousness before your brain has tried 29 00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:47,600 Speaker 1: to make sense of them or assigned them some sort 30 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:52,480 Speaker 1: of interpretation. Hurlbert explained, the object of my research is 31 00:01:52,520 --> 00:01:55,800 Speaker 1: not to explore inner speech or inner monologue, or whatever 32 00:01:55,840 --> 00:01:58,800 Speaker 1: you want to call it, but to explore your experience 33 00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:02,960 Speaker 1: as it actually is is. He thought that an alarm 34 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:05,880 Speaker 1: of some kind might work, but back then there were 35 00:02:05,880 --> 00:02:09,440 Speaker 1: no cell phones or pagers. So Hurlbert, who has an 36 00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:13,240 Speaker 1: engineering background, designed and patented a device that beeped at 37 00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:17,160 Speaker 1: random intervals. Each time the beeper went off, he asked 38 00:02:17,200 --> 00:02:20,120 Speaker 1: subjects to make notes about their experiences in the moment. 39 00:02:21,320 --> 00:02:24,320 Speaker 1: As students what about their days. These beepers would go 40 00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:27,520 Speaker 1: off at random times. They were instructed to try to 41 00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:30,720 Speaker 1: clarify what was happening in their minds at that instant. 42 00:02:31,560 --> 00:02:34,600 Speaker 1: The beepers went off only a few times. This was 43 00:02:34,639 --> 00:02:37,440 Speaker 1: intentional so that the research subjects would forget that they 44 00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:41,240 Speaker 1: had them and thus not contaminate their thinking processes with 45 00:02:41,320 --> 00:02:46,720 Speaker 1: thoughts about the experiment. Later, researchers asked the students questions 46 00:02:46,720 --> 00:02:49,320 Speaker 1: to better understand how the students were thinking when the 47 00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:54,919 Speaker 1: beepers sounded. Were they visualizing something, experiencing a tactile sensation, feeling, 48 00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:59,079 Speaker 1: and emotion. This line of inquiry is called descriptive experience 49 00:02:59,200 --> 00:03:04,160 Speaker 1: sampling or d e S. Harlbert said one key takeaway 50 00:03:04,240 --> 00:03:07,040 Speaker 1: was that quote you can't expect a good answer on 51 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:10,280 Speaker 1: the first day. Essentially, it takes a day or two 52 00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:12,800 Speaker 1: of d e S training before people find ways to 53 00:03:12,840 --> 00:03:16,240 Speaker 1: focus on and express what they're experiencing in a given moment. 54 00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:20,000 Speaker 1: In his research, he found that most subjects struggled to 55 00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:23,280 Speaker 1: articulate the way they were talking to themselves. When he 56 00:03:23,320 --> 00:03:26,600 Speaker 1: asked them for these specific words or sentences, many came 57 00:03:26,639 --> 00:03:30,160 Speaker 1: up blank. He said, And in the course of doing that, 58 00:03:30,320 --> 00:03:33,600 Speaker 1: you and I together, I guess you would say we decide, well, 59 00:03:33,639 --> 00:03:36,080 Speaker 1: I thought I had inner speech, but I really don't. 60 00:03:37,520 --> 00:03:40,680 Speaker 1: His studies show that subjects talked to themselves inwardly about 61 00:03:41,680 --> 00:03:44,320 Speaker 1: of the time they were sampled, but that many never 62 00:03:44,400 --> 00:03:47,240 Speaker 1: experienced inner speech, while others had it up to seventy 63 00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:50,520 Speaker 1: five percent of the time. The median percentage of time 64 00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:56,520 Speaker 1: that subjects were sampled experiencing inner speech was just Harlbert 65 00:03:56,560 --> 00:03:58,920 Speaker 1: has worked with other researchers to use d E S 66 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:01,920 Speaker 1: questioning while so objects were inside m R I scanners 67 00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:06,600 Speaker 1: study of to be fair just five subjects. The scanners 68 00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:09,400 Speaker 1: show that the area of the brain associated with certain 69 00:04:09,440 --> 00:04:12,320 Speaker 1: topics lit up when subjects said they were thinking about 70 00:04:12,360 --> 00:04:18,040 Speaker 1: those things, providing a physical link to the abstractions of thoughts. Still, 71 00:04:18,160 --> 00:04:21,839 Speaker 1: scientists are grappling with a lot of uncertainty what causes 72 00:04:21,880 --> 00:04:25,599 Speaker 1: an inner monologue to begin with. Some research shows that 73 00:04:25,680 --> 00:04:29,480 Speaker 1: people often use more inner verbalization when they're under pressure. 74 00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:33,640 Speaker 1: Perhaps they're rehearsing answers to job interview questions, or maybe 75 00:04:33,640 --> 00:04:36,800 Speaker 1: they're trying to focus on a competitive task like athletics. 76 00:04:37,760 --> 00:04:41,080 Speaker 1: Among people who do report inner monologue, they tend to 77 00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:45,080 Speaker 1: perceive those voices as their own. That self talk generally 78 00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:48,640 Speaker 1: has a familiar pace and tone, although the exact voice 79 00:04:48,720 --> 00:04:52,560 Speaker 1: might change depending on whether the current scenario is happy, scary, 80 00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:56,839 Speaker 1: or relaxed. Sometimes they might use whole sentences, other times 81 00:04:56,880 --> 00:04:59,400 Speaker 1: they might rely on condensed word play that would be 82 00:04:59,520 --> 00:05:05,360 Speaker 1: meaningless to anyone else. But what causes inner speech? Mark Scott, 83 00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:08,520 Speaker 1: a researcher at the University of British Columbia, found that 84 00:05:08,600 --> 00:05:12,280 Speaker 1: there's a brain signal called corollary discharge that helps us 85 00:05:12,279 --> 00:05:16,480 Speaker 1: distinguish between sensory experiences we create internally versus those from 86 00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:20,000 Speaker 1: outside stimuli, and the signal plays a big role in 87 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:23,200 Speaker 1: internal speech. It also plays a role in how our 88 00:05:23,240 --> 00:05:27,640 Speaker 1: auditory systems process speech. You see, when we speak, there's 89 00:05:27,640 --> 00:05:30,440 Speaker 1: an internal copy of the sound of our voice that's 90 00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:35,000 Speaker 1: generated at the same time as our speaking voice. As 91 00:05:35,040 --> 00:05:38,960 Speaker 1: for the online debate regarding inner monologue, Hurlbert understands that 92 00:05:39,120 --> 00:05:43,039 Speaker 1: online commenters have taken strong positions on the matter. Some 93 00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:46,719 Speaker 1: people simply can't imagine not having an inner voice. Others 94 00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:49,880 Speaker 1: are taken aback by the idea of constant internal chatter. 95 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:54,000 Speaker 1: He said, half of those people are probably right and 96 00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:56,599 Speaker 1: half of them are not right about their own inner 97 00:05:56,600 --> 00:06:01,279 Speaker 1: monologue characteristics. The main conclusions are inc the people don't 98 00:06:01,320 --> 00:06:05,640 Speaker 1: know what's in their own experience, and he said level 99 00:06:05,680 --> 00:06:08,800 Speaker 1: of confidence is not a good predictor of whether someone 100 00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:13,960 Speaker 1: has an active inner monologue, but could more accurate measures 101 00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:16,880 Speaker 1: of our thoughts be on the way. An ongoing project 102 00:06:16,920 --> 00:06:20,480 Speaker 1: called alter Ego at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has 103 00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:24,800 Speaker 1: successfully demonstrated that a head mounted gadget can read people's thoughts. 104 00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:28,960 Speaker 1: The device interprets subtle neuromuscular signals that people make when 105 00:06:28,960 --> 00:06:32,800 Speaker 1: they internally verbalize certain phrases or words. Although it's still 106 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:35,680 Speaker 1: a prototype, it's been demonstrated to be capable of accuracy 107 00:06:35,760 --> 00:06:44,040 Speaker 1: of more than Today's episode was written by Nathan Chandler 108 00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:46,320 Speaker 1: and produced by Tyler Klang. For more on this and 109 00:06:46,320 --> 00:06:49,600 Speaker 1: lots of other thought provoking topics, visit how stuffworks dot com. 110 00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:52,640 Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts 111 00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:55,680 Speaker 1: for my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 112 00:06:55,760 --> 00:06:57,480 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.