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Inner speech: A window into consciousness

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 inner speech
a window into consciousness
Alain Morin & Bob Uttl

I
nner speech represents a running commentary on any significant aspects
of ourselves and our world. As such it “exteriorizes” consciousness, so
to speak. While self-talk has been studied in specific situations such as
self-regulation, and during distinct mental states like anxiety, very little
is known about naturally occurring inner speech in everyday life. Morin and
colleagues (Morin et al., 2011; Uttl et al., 2012) have probed inner speech fre-
quency and content in over 500 participants using self-report and thought
sampling measures. Their findings show that inner speech is very often
about the self and that a large portion is concerned with what others think
of the self (e.g., self-evaluating, others’ opinion of the self, appearance, per-
VLADGRIN/Bigstockphoto.com

formance), as well as individuals and activities relevant to the self. In ad-

dition, self-reported inner speech frequently serves self-regulatory (plan-
ning), problem-solving, and mnemonic functions. In a thought sampling
study using cell phones (Uttl et al., 2012), participants indicated talking to
themselves over 50% of all prompt occasions; this is much higher than the
25% previously reported in another study (Heavey & Hurlburt, 2008). These
results are discussed in terms of fit with the existing inner speech literature
and key novelties are underlined.
Cover: VLADGRIN/Bigstockphoto.com

2 Neuropsychotherapist.com

Inner Speech and Consciousness
Consciousness, broadly defined, consists of one’s
ongoing experience of self and world, which includes
sensations, perceptions, needs, goals, emotions,
thoughts, memories, preferences, attitudes, inten-
tions, etc., (Baars, 1988; Natsoulas, 1978). Because
inner speech constitutes a running verbal commen-
tary that often focuses on the content of one’s sub-
jective experience (Morin, 2005), it represents an
ideal window into consciousness. In this article we
ask: What do people talk to themselves about, how
often, and why? Answering these questions will at
least partially open this window. Our preliminary
results, discussed below, suggest that people can
potentially talk to themselves about a large number
of topics related to the self, others, and the environ-
ment. This is consistent with the widespread idea
that consciousness represents a very rich and com-
plex experience (Morin, 2006).
Philosophers (e.g., Aristotle, Ryle) extensively
wrote about inner speech (Blachowicz, 1997), but
Russian psychologists (e.g., Luria, Vygotsky) were
the first to empirically study its self-regulatory func-
tion (Sokolov, 1972). Self-regulation involves altering
one’s behavior, resisting temptation, changing one’s
mood, selecting a response from various options,
and filtering irrelevant information (Baumeister &
Vohs, 2003). A broad definition of self-regulation
includes setting goals, planning, problem-solving,
decision-making, and self-motivating speech. Self-
directed speech has been shown to be implicated in
all aforementioned activities, and blocking the in-
ner voice by asking participants to mentally count
backward results in them engaging in more impul-
sive behavior (Tullett & Inzlicht, 2010). Inner speech
is also involved in all basic language functions such
as reading, writing, and speaking (Abramson &
Goldinger, 1997; Levine et al., 1982). Baddeley and
Hitch (1974) focused on the memory function of in-
ner speech—the “phonological loop” that gets ac-
tivated when one rehearses material in short-term
working memory, such as a phone number. More
recently, psychologists have increasingly been ac-
knowledging the role of inner speech in self-aware-
ness (DeSouza et al., 2008; Edelman et al., 2011;
Morin & Hamper, 2012; Neuman & Nave, 2010).
Self-awareness is defined as the ability to become
the object of one’s own attention; in that state one
actively identifies, processes, and stores informa-
tion about the self (Duval & Wicklund, 1972; Morin,
2011a). Although other mental and social factors
underlie self-awareness (Morin, 2004), empirical evi-
dence does support the idea of self-reflection often
Alain Morin & Bob Uttl
being mediated by one’s inner voice (Morin, 2009;
Schneider et al., 2005).
Note that ruminative and negative inner speech
may be associated with diverse psychological disor-
ders such as schizophrenia, social anxiety, and de-
pression (Beazley et al., 2001; Fernyhough, 2004).
Psychotherapeutic interventions have been de-
signed to reduce or change dysfunctional self-talk
(e.g., Meichenbaum, 1977).
Thought Sampling Research
Additional functions of inner speech have been
identified (see Morin, 2011b). It should be apparent
by now that inner speech plays a central role in hu-
man consciousness. A variety of measurement tech-
niques exist to assess thought processes, including
inner speech (see De Guerrero, 2005 & Table 1 for a
summary).
Spontaneously occurring mental events in healthy
individuals have been investigated using numerous
variations of the thought sampling method. This
method consists in sampling thinking in participants’
natural environments by using beepers that signal
participants to report aspects of their experience
at random intervals (Hulburt, 1997). To illustrate,
Klinger and Cox (1987-88) relied on a questionnaire
that participants were asked to fill in when being
randomly beeped throughout the day. The ques-
tionnaire assessed various characteristics of mental
experiences such as the specificity, detail and color
of visual experiences, as well as sense of control over
these experiences and their time frame. Csikszent-
mihalyi and Figurski (1982) also used the thought
sampling method and identified the following key
topics people in their sample thought about (from
most to least frequent): work, time, chores, leisure,
self, people, conversations, TV and radio, and food.
Diehl and Hay (2007) asked participants to complete
daily diaries over a 30-day period and to respond to a
checklist of self-descriptors (e.g., agreeable, angry,
energetic, insecure) in order to rate the emotional
valence of their internal experiences. Among other
things, their results showed that fluctuations in af-
fect ratings tended to be related to the number of
daily stressors reported by participants: on days
with a larger number of stressful events, positive af-
fect tended to decrease and negative affect tended
to increase. Goldstein and Kenen (1988) invited vol-
unteers to list their typical thoughts and found that
80% of respondents indicated making agreements
with themselves; 44% of these thoughts were de-
scribed as being a process of internal dialogue about
lifestyle and health-related issues—i.e., smoking,
Neuropsychotherapist.com 3
 Inner Speech: A Window into Consciousness

Table 1. Representative measures of inner speech.

Measure Description
Questionnaires 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 situa-
tions.
Think out loud method Recordings of adults’ verbalizations as they are working on a given task; partici-
pants 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; partici-
pants 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 suppres- Having 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 exter-
movements 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.

drinking, working, interpersonal relations, reducing inner speech in our case, the thought listing proce-
weight, and studying. These results illustrate the of- dure represents a better option1. With this method,
ten mentioned “dialogical” nature of inner speech volunteers are invited to retrospectively list as many
(Fernyhough, 1996). Heavey and Hurlburt (2008) thoughts that they can remember having experi-
examined the frequency of common inner experi- enced during a specific event.
ence phenomena by using a beeper that randomly In one study (Morin, et al. 2011) we employed an
cued participants to report whatever mental events open-format thought listing method to measure in-
they were experiencing at the moment of the probe. ner speech in a sample of over 400 undergraduate
Their small sample (n = 30) of college students re- students. Participants were invited to list what they
ported five basic types of inner experiences each typically say to themselves when using inner speech.
occurring approximately 20% of the time: inner The thought listing technique is usually used to as-
speech, mental imagery, thinking without symbols, sess inner speech occurrences in very specific situa-
feelings, and sensory awareness. tions during a limited time period (Cacioppo & Petty
,1981)—e.g., immediately following a social interac-
Our Thought Listing Study: Findings tion or contact with a feared stimulus, where inner
speech content in socially anxious or phobic patients
The thought sampling technique fits well for those
is compared to content generated by healthy partic-
who want to capture all possible internal events that
ipants. In contrast to this typical use of the thought-
make up consciousness (e.g., images, sensations),
listing method, we wanted to sample participants’
as described above. However, if one aims at dissect-
naturally occurring inner speech. Thus, the novelty
ing a specific aspect of conscious experience, such as
of our approach is that we asked participants to re-
1 The thought sampling approach can be used to uniquely assess inner speech, but instructions to participants must clearly
specify to report one’s verbal thoughts as opposed to any other form of mental or bodily experience. See “A Cell Phone Study”
section below.

4 Neuropsychotherapist.com
 Alain Morin & Bob Uttl

port inner speech content as occurring in everyday

Table 2. Most frequently self-reported
life without situational or temporal restrictions. The
goal was to obtain as ecological valid inner speech inner speech content and functions.
samples as possible. Inner speech Inner speech content
We developed a coding scheme to classify and categories
quantify inner speech data into specific content and Self & others— • self-evaluation
function units. Our coding system includes the fol- general • emotions
lowing categories: (1) inner speech about the self, • physical appearance
others, or unspecified (e.g., career, emotions, health); • relationships
(2) inner speech about people (e.g., family, friends, • problems
community); (3) inner speech about the physical en- • food
vironment (e.g., province/state, workplace, weath- • behavior
er); (4) inner speech about activities (e.g., cooking, • financial situation
driving, leisure); (5) inner speech about events (e.g., • stress
at school, significant social events, future events); • performance
and (6) inner speech functions (e.g., planning tasks • future
to do, remembering, self-censorship). • education
Table 2 presents the most frequently reported • beliefs
inner speech content and functions by participants. • others’ opinion of self
One general observation is that our participants • hypothetical situations
mostly reported talking to themselves about them- Functions • to plan tasks
selves. In decreasing order, the most frequently • to remember
mentioned units were self-evaluation, emotions, • to self-motivate
physical appearance, relationships, problems, food, • to solve problems
behavior, financial situation, stress, performance, • to plan when to do specific tasks
future, education, beliefs, others’ opinion of self, • to think
and hypothetical situations. The least frequently • to rehearse upcoming conversa-
reported inner speech units were dream contents, tions
sexuality, personality traits, and death. In terms of • to read, write or calculate
inner speech functions, participants reported (in de- • to study
creasing order) talking to themselves to plan tasks, • to control emotions
to remember, to self-motivate, to solve problems, to • to determine what to wear
plan when to do specific tasks, to think, to rehearse • to self-censor
upcoming conversations, to read, write or calcu- • to replay past conversations
late, to study, to control emotions, to decide what
Social • family members
to wear, to self-censor, and to replay past conversa-
environment • friends
tions. The less frequently reported functions were
• people in general
praying, concentrating, rephrasing, and creativity.
• intimate partner
Regarding self-talk pertaining to participants’ so-
• children
cial environment, participants mostly reported (in
decreasing importance) engaging in inner speech Activities • school & educational activities
about family members, friends, people in general, • sports activities
their intimate partner, and children; larger social • work
groups like one’s nation were rarely the focus on in- • leisure activities
ner speech in our sample. In terms of activities, our • chores
participants often indicated talking to themselves • music
about school, sports activities, work, leisure activi- • driving
ties, chores, music, and driving. Activities that were Physical • immediate surroundings
rarely mentioned were moving, alcohol and drug use, environment
and dating. Our participants talked to themselves Events • general daily events
mostly about their immediate physical environment • future events
and not much about their town, neighbourhood or • past events
workplace. And finally, participants reported talking

Neuropsychotherapist.com 5
 Inner Speech: A Window into Consciousness

to themselves mostly about general daily events, fu- The most often self-reported inner speech func-
ture events, and past events. tion was self-regulation, which includes planning
to engage in specific tasks, self-motivating speech,
Thought Listing Study: Discussion self-censorship, time management, and planning
when to do things. Also frequently mentioned was
Participants in our sample mostly reported talk-
self-talk used to solve problems and make decisions,
ing to themselves about themselves. This observa-
as 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) be- The 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 discrimi-
what 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 ap-
Mead’s 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, be-
ture 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 D’Argembeau et al. (2009),
suggesting that at least some MTT is mediated by
inner speech. Their study also showed that future-
oriented thoughts often gravitated around leisure
activities, work, errands, and relationships. The re-
ported functions of future-oriented thoughts in the
same study were planning, deciding, setting goals,
and reassuring the self. These functions are consist-
ent with inner speech functions reported by our par-
ticipants.
Self-reported inner speech about people focused
more on individuals that are close to oneself―family
members, friends, intimate partner—and much less
on distant and unknown others, such as the commu-
nity 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, par-
michaeljung/Bigstockphoto.com

ticipants in our sample talked to themselves mostly

about their immediate physical environment as op-
posed to more distant environmental themes such
as one’s city, province, or nation. Again, this most
likely reflects people’s natural inclination to think
about things significant to the self. Participants indi-
cated frequently talking to themselves about school
and education, work, leisure activities, and chores.
These represent typical activities most undergradu-
ate students regularly engage in.

6 Neuropsychotherapist.com

or may “recall” instances that never occurred. The
thought sampling approach discussed previously
(see Footnote 1) is likely to take care of this limita-
tion because it directly samples participants’ inner
speech by randomly interrupting them during daily
activities, thus producing more “natural” (ecologi-
cally valid) content that does not rely on memory
resources. Accordingly, in the next study, we (Uttl et
al., 2012) used participants’ cell phones as a beeper
device and asked them through text messaging to
report their immediate inner speech content and
current activity.
Participants were randomly sent eight prompts
per day for seven days; each prompt asked them to
report (1) whether they were talking to themselves
or not, (2) (if yes) what they were talking to them-
selves about, and (3) what activity they were en-
gaged in. The coding scheme described previously
was used to classify inner speech. The content and
functions of inner speech that participants report-
ed upon receipt of the text message prompts were
comparable to what we obtained using the thought
listing technique, suggesting that (1) a retrospec-
tive self-report approach is valid and not overly con-
taminated with recall biases, and (2) participants are
able to report on their own inner speech use with
a reasonable degree of accuracy. Our participants
reported being engaged in the following activities
(in decreasing order) when they received the text
messages: watching TV, doing homework, talking
to someone, eating, driving, relaxing, and surfing
the internet or writing emails. Perhaps the most
intriguing result we obtained was that participants
reported talking to themselves well over 50 percent
of all messages sent. This is much higher than the
twenty-five percent previously reported by Heavey
and Hurlburt (2008) in their small sample study of 30
participants. Our 160-participant sample allows for
better generalization and suggests that people talk
to themselves much more often that previously es-
timated.
Future Research Questions and Conclusion
We hope that the data presented in this article
offer a glimpse into what consciousness is made
up of when seen as a running verbal commentary Cacioppo, J.T., & Petty, R.E. (1981). Social psychological
on ourselves and our environment. To summarize,
our work so far suggests that a substantial portion
of consciousness is self-reflective—i.e., is about the
person being conscious. Conscious experience is
also largely about aspects of the world that are perti-
nent to the self, including planning (self-regulating) Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Figurski, T. (1982). Self-aware-
events and behaviors.
Alain Morin & Bob Uttl
Our previous studies inform us about normal,
healthy consciousness in university students. What
about older nonstudent individuals? What about ab-
normal, unhealthy conscious experiences? What do
anxious, depressed, or addicted individuals talk to
themselves about? How does inner speech use cor-
relate with various personality traits (e.g., Extrover-
sion, Agreeableness) and cognitive operations (e.g.,
prospective memory, verbal knowledge)? Are there
cultural differences in inner speech frequency, con-
tent, and functions? These questions remain to be
addressed, and their answers will further enhance
our understanding of consciousness.
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Alain Morin, Ph.D.

Dr. Alain Morin got his Ph.D from Laval University in 1992. Be-
tween 1991 and 2001 he taught various courses and conducted
research in a host of Canadian universities and colleges in the
Maritimes (e.g., St. Francis Xavier University, Acadia University)
and Québec (e.g., Université de Montréal, CEGEP de Rivière-du-
Loup). Now at Mount Royal University in Calgary, he teaches
Theories of Personality, Social Cognition, and The Self. His field
of expertise is self-awareness, more specifically: its cognitive un-
derlying mechanisms with an emphasis on inner speech. Morin
publishes scientific papers in journals such as Consciousness &
Cognition, Cortex, Brain & Behavioral Sciences, Brain Research
Bulletin, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Journal of Mind and Behavior, and Science & Consciousness Re-
view. His most recent contribution is a meta-analysis of brain-imaging studies using self-tasks in relation to left
inferior frontal gyrus activation (the brain area that sustains inner speech). He also recently published a book
chapter entitled “What are animals conscious of?” Morin is currently working on individual differences in in-
ner speech, personality, psychopathology, and cognition. Other research interests include self-recognition, the
localization of the self in the brain, the split-brain phenomenon, neurophilosophy, fame and self-destruction,
and the antecedents of self-consciousness.

Bob Uttl, Ph.D.

Dr. Bob Uttl has held academic posts in a several uni-

versities and research institutes including National In-
stitutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (USA), Oregon State
University, Corvallis, OR (USA), University of Tsukuba,
Tsukuba City (Japan), and Tamagawa University, Tokyo
(Japan). Currently, he is Associate Professor of Psychol-
ogy at Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada. His
research interests are broadly focused on cognition and
cognitive aging. Topics of current and recent work in-
clude the relation between perception, processing resources, and memory; changes in perception, processing
resources, memory, and intelligence due to normal and pathological aging; prospective memory; inner speech;
and measurement and research methods in psychology. Dr. Uttl has served as co-editor of Dynamic Cognitive
Processes (2005) and Memory and Emotion (2006), co-authored over fifty scientific papers, and presented his
research at numerous conferences worldwide.

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