Internal monologue

Shortly after @haideralmosawi talked about his inner conversation habit, Hank Green also talked about his own lack of inner monologue. This monologue is one of the executive functions in the information processing model. Children go through a phase where they talk out loud, commenting on their actions, then start to internalize this speech. But as Hank points out, it’s also possible to lose this inner monologue later in life. (It’s possible the monologue is there but just can’t be heard unless focused upon.)

Often I find songs are playing in my head on a loop, but I rarely hear the monologue anymore. And speed readers often focus on ridding themselves of this monologue specifically since it slows down their reading pace. Maybe a similar thing happens when someone finds themselves using language a lot.

I tend to pace around and talk aloud to think things through. But now I find myself talking things out (through my keyboard) with AI bots, and then making audio summaries I can listen to in order to shift my brain back onto a topic.

As I play with image generation I can easily see this becoming a part of my writing process in many ways. Not just testing cover designs, or visualizing the story, but also visualizing concepts. Will I develop a similar process with music and speech, reflecting ideas with AI? Will I eventually internalize the chatbot and find myself experiencing an internal dialogue?