Do you actually hear the voice? I often have words in my head when I think about things, but there isn’t really an auditory component. It’s just words in a more abstract form.
I wouldn’t say I literally hear the voice; I can easily distinguish it from sounds I’m actually hearing. But the experience is definitely auditory, at least some of the time; I could tell you whether the voice is male or female, what accent they’re speaking in (usually my own), how high or low the voice is, and so on.
I definitely also have non-auditory thoughts as well. Sometimes they’re visual, sometimes they’re spatial, and sometimes they don’t seem to have any sensory-like component at all. (For what it’s worth, visual and spatial thoughts are essential to the way I think about math.)
If you want to poke at this a bit, one way could be to test what sort of interferences disrupt different activities for you, compared to a friend.
I’m thinking of the bit in “Surely you’re joking” where Feynman finds that he can’t talk and maintain a mental counter at the same time, while a friend of his can—because his friend’s mental counter is visual.
Neat. I can do it both ways… actually, I can name at least four different ways of counting:
“Raw” counting, without any sensory component; really just a sense of magnitude. Seems to be a floating-point, with a really small number of bits; I usually lose track of the exact number by, oh, six.
Verbally. Interferes with talking, as you’d expect.
Visually, using actual 2/3D models of whatever I’m counting. No interference, but a strict upper limit, and interferes with seeing—well, usually the other way around. The upper limit still seems to be five-six picture elements, but I can arrange them in various ways to count higher; binary, for starters, but also geometrically or.. various ways.
Visually, using pictures of decimal numbers. That interferes with speaking when updating the number, but otherwise sticks around without any active maintenance, at least so long as I have my eyes closed. I’m still limited to five-six digits, though… either decimal or hexadecimal works. I could probably figure out a more efficient encoding if I worked at it.
I, for one, actually hear the voice. It’s quite clear. Not loud like an actual voice but a “so loud I can’t hear myself think” moment has never literally happened to me since the voice seems more like its on its own track, parallel to my actual hearing. I would never get it confused with actual sounds, though I can’t really separate the hearing it to the making it to be sure of that.
but a “so loud I can’t hear myself think” moment has never literally happened to me since the voice seems more like its on its own track, parallel to my actual hearing.
That’s interesting! Because I have definitely had “so loud I can’t hear myself think” moments (even though I don’t literally hear thoughts) - just two days ago, I had to ask somebody to stop talking for a while so that I could focus.
Being distracted is one thing—I mean literally not being able to hear my thoughts in the manner that I might not be able to hear what you said if a jet was taking off nearby. This was to emphasize that even though I perceive them as sounds there is ‘something’ different about them than sounds-from-ears that seems to prevent them from audibly mingling. Loud noises can still make me lose track of what I was thinking and break focus.
Hmm. Now that I think of it, I’m not sure to what extent it was just distraction and to what extent a literal inability to hear my thoughts. Could’ve been exclusively one, or parts of both.
Do you actually hear the voice? I often have words in my head when I think about things, but there isn’t really an auditory component. It’s just words in a more abstract form.
I wouldn’t say I literally hear the voice; I can easily distinguish it from sounds I’m actually hearing. But the experience is definitely auditory, at least some of the time; I could tell you whether the voice is male or female, what accent they’re speaking in (usually my own), how high or low the voice is, and so on.
I definitely also have non-auditory thoughts as well. Sometimes they’re visual, sometimes they’re spatial, and sometimes they don’t seem to have any sensory-like component at all. (For what it’s worth, visual and spatial thoughts are essential to the way I think about math.)
If you want to poke at this a bit, one way could be to test what sort of interferences disrupt different activities for you, compared to a friend.
I’m thinking of the bit in “Surely you’re joking” where Feynman finds that he can’t talk and maintain a mental counter at the same time, while a friend of his can—because his friend’s mental counter is visual.
Neat. I can do it both ways… actually, I can name at least four different ways of counting:
“Raw” counting, without any sensory component; really just a sense of magnitude. Seems to be a floating-point, with a really small number of bits; I usually lose track of the exact number by, oh, six.
Verbally. Interferes with talking, as you’d expect.
Visually, using actual 2/3D models of whatever I’m counting. No interference, but a strict upper limit, and interferes with seeing—well, usually the other way around. The upper limit still seems to be five-six picture elements, but I can arrange them in various ways to count higher; binary, for starters, but also geometrically or.. various ways.
Visually, using pictures of decimal numbers. That interferes with speaking when updating the number, but otherwise sticks around without any active maintenance, at least so long as I have my eyes closed. I’m still limited to five-six digits, though… either decimal or hexadecimal works. I could probably figure out a more efficient encoding if I worked at it.
I, for one, actually hear the voice. It’s quite clear. Not loud like an actual voice but a “so loud I can’t hear myself think” moment has never literally happened to me since the voice seems more like its on its own track, parallel to my actual hearing. I would never get it confused with actual sounds, though I can’t really separate the hearing it to the making it to be sure of that.
That’s interesting! Because I have definitely had “so loud I can’t hear myself think” moments (even though I don’t literally hear thoughts) - just two days ago, I had to ask somebody to stop talking for a while so that I could focus.
Being distracted is one thing—I mean literally not being able to hear my thoughts in the manner that I might not be able to hear what you said if a jet was taking off nearby. This was to emphasize that even though I perceive them as sounds there is ‘something’ different about them than sounds-from-ears that seems to prevent them from audibly mingling. Loud noises can still make me lose track of what I was thinking and break focus.
Hmm. Now that I think of it, I’m not sure to what extent it was just distraction and to what extent a literal inability to hear my thoughts. Could’ve been exclusively one, or parts of both.