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Neuropsychotherapist.com
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Description
Administering questionnaires made up of self-statements along a variety of
domains (e.g., anxious versus non-anxious). Participants rate the frequency of
their self-talk using a Likert-scale (e.g., from 0 Never to 5 Very Often).
Private speech
Recordings of spontaneous speech-for-self emitted by children in social situations.
Think out loud method Recordings of adults verbalizations as they are working on a given task; participants are explicitly asked to verbalize their thoughts without censoring them.
Videotape reconstruc- Reconstructing thoughts that participants had during precise situations (e.g.,
tion procedure
task performance) by showing them video recordings of their behavior; participants are asked to recall inner speech content as accurately as possible.
Thought listing
Retrospectively listing as many thoughts as possible that occurred in specific
situations.
Thought sampling
Collecting a representative sample of participants mental experiences in
natural settings. Subjects wear a beeper that produces audio signals at random
intervals throughout the day. They are asked to report the content of their
thoughts upon hearing the beep.
Articulatory suppresHaving participants complete a task while concurrently reciting verses or
sion(1)
mentally counting backward from 100. The forced articulation produced by the
recitation or counting blocks any other articulation that would be otherwise
required when spontaneously engaging in inner speech.
Electromyographic
Making electromyographic recordings of movements of the lips and tongue
recordings of tongue
during problem-solving tasks. These movements represent an objective extermovements
nal expression of inner speech activity.
(1) Articulatory suppression does not assess inner speech per se but informs the researcher as to what types of
cognitive work cannot be accomplished without it.
inner speech in our case, the thought listing procedure represents a better option1. With this method,
volunteers are invited to retrospectively list as many
thoughts that they can remember having experienced during a specific event.
In one study (Morin, et al. 2011) we employed an
open-format thought listing method to measure inner speech in a sample of over 400 undergraduate
students. Participants were invited to list what they
typically say to themselves when using inner speech.
The thought listing technique is usually used to assess inner speech occurrences in very specific situations during a limited time period (Cacioppo & Petty
,1981)e.g., immediately following a social interaction or contact with a feared stimulus, where inner
Our Thought Listing Study: Findings
speech content in socially anxious or phobic patients
The thought sampling technique fits well for those
is compared to content generated by healthy particwho want to capture all possible internal events that
ipants. In contrast to this typical use of the thoughtmake up consciousness (e.g., images, sensations),
listing method, we wanted to sample participants
as described above. However, if one aims at dissectnaturally occurring inner speech. Thus, the novelty
ing a specific aspect of conscious experience, such as
of our approach is that we asked participants to re1 The thought sampling approach can be used to uniquely assess inner speech, but instructions to participants must clearly
specify to report ones verbal thoughts as opposed to any other form of mental or bodily experience. See A Cell Phone Study
section below.
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Functions
Social
environment
Activities
Physical
environment
Events
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to themselves mostly about general daily events, fuThe most often self-reported inner speech functure events, and past events.
tion was self-regulation, which includes planning
to engage in specific tasks, self-motivating speech,
self-censorship, time management, and planning
Thought Listing Study: Discussion
when to do things. Also frequently mentioned was
Participants in our sample mostly reported talkself-talk used to solve problems and make decisions,
ing to themselves about themselves. This observaas well as inner speech used to remember things.
tion is consistent with the proposed role played by
These inner speech functions are precisely those
inner speech in self-reflection (Morin & Hamper,
that have been the most extensively investigated in
2012). Participants indicated talking to themselves
the literature (e.g., Zivin, 1979).
about private self-aspects (e.g., emotions, beliefs)
and public self-aspects (e.g., physical appearance,
behavior), which reflects the classic distinction in- A Cell Phone Study
troduced by Fenigstein and colleagues (1975) beThe thought listing approach described above
tween private and public self-consciousness. Also, represents a nonreactive method which shows
a significant proportion of inner speech was about good criterion-related, concurrent, and discrimiwhat others think of the self (e.g., self-evaluating, nant validity (Cacioppo et al., 1997). In other words,
others opinion of self, appearance): this echoes inner speech measured with the thought listing apMeads view (1934) that the self at least partially de- proach correlates well with other measures of inner
fines itself by taking others perspective and imag- speech, does not correlate with measures unrelated
ining how one is perceived by others. Participants to inner speech, and predicts actual behavior (e.g.,
reported frequently engaging in self-talk about fu- emotional reaction to feared stimuli). However, beture events. A growing body of literature is currently cause of its retrospective and reconstructive nature,
examining mental time travel (MTT) (Quoidback et the thought-listing method may cause recall errors.
al., 2008; Szpunar, 2010). MTT involves mentally Put simply, there is the possibility that participants
projecting oneself in a fictional future. Our results fit may forget some actual inner speech occurrences
with those obtained by DArgembeau et al. (2009),
suggesting that at least some MTT is mediated by
inner speech. Their study also showed that futureoriented thoughts often gravitated around leisure
activities, work, errands, and relationships. The reported functions of future-oriented thoughts in the
same study were planning, deciding, setting goals,
and reassuring the self. These functions are consistent with inner speech functions reported by our participants.
Self-reported inner speech about people focused
more on individuals that are close to oneselffamily
members, friends, intimate partnerand much less
on distant and unknown others, such as the community and the world. It may be reasonable to assume
that people are simply more interested in (and may
talk to themselves more often about) any things
directly relevant to themselves. In addition, participants in our sample talked to themselves mostly
about their immediate physical environment as opposed to more distant environmental themes such
as ones city, province, or nation. Again, this most
likely reflects peoples natural inclination to think
about things significant to the self. Participants indicated frequently talking to themselves about school
and education, work, leisure activities, and chores.
These represent typical activities most undergraduate students regularly engage in.
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References
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