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Nedergaard JSK, Lupyan G. Not Everybody Has an Inner Voice: Behavioral Consequences of Anendophasia. Psychol Sci 2024:9567976241243004. [PMID: 38728320 DOI: 10.1177/09567976241243004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/12/2024] Open
Abstract
It is commonly assumed that inner speech-the experience of thought as occurring in a natural language-is a human universal. Recent evidence, however, suggests that the experience of inner speech in adults varies from near constant to nonexistent. We propose a name for a lack of the experience of inner speech-anendophasia-and report four studies examining some of its behavioral consequences. We found that adults who reported low levels of inner speech (N = 46) had lower performance on a verbal working memory task and more difficulty performing rhyme judgments compared with adults who reported high levels of inner speech (N = 47). Task-switching performance-previously linked to endogenous verbal cueing-and categorical effects on perceptual judgments were unrelated to differences in inner speech.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Gary Lupyan
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Wendiggensen P, Beste C. How Intermittent Brain States Modulate Neurophysiological Processes in Cognitive Flexibility. J Cogn Neurosci 2023; 35:749-764. [PMID: 36724399 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01970] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/03/2023]
Abstract
Cognitive flexibility is an essential facet of everyday life, for example, when switching between different tasks. Neurophysiological accounts on cognitive flexibility have often focused on the task switch itself, disregarding preceding processes and the possible impact of "brain states" before engaging in cognitive flexibility. In a combined working memory/task-switching paradigm, we examined how neuronal processes during cognitive flexibility are interrelated to preceding neuronal processes across time and brain regions in a sample of n = 42 healthy adults. The interrelation of alpha- and theta-band-related processes over brain states ahead and during response selection was investigated on a functional neuroanatomical level using EEG-beamforming. The results showed that response selection processes (reflected by theta-band activity) seem to be strongly connected to "idling" and preparatory brain activity states (in both the theta- and alpha-band). Notably, the superior parietal cortex seems to play a crucial role by assembling alpha-band-related inhibitory processes from the rule- and goal-based actions during "idling" brain states, namely, short-term maintenance of rules (temporal cortex), task-set reconfiguration (superior frontal/precentral regions), and perceptual control (occipital cortex). This information is further relayed to response selection processes associated with theta-band activity. Notably, when the task has to be switched, theta-band activity in the superior frontal gyrus indicates a need for cognitive control in the "idling" brain state, which also seems to be relayed by BA7. The results indicate the importance of brain activity states ahead of response selection processes for cognitive flexibility.
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Control transition between cued and voluntary choice tasks: Effects on cognitive flexibility. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s12144-021-02680-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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Nalborczyk L, Banjac S, Baeyens C, Grandchamp R, Koster EHW, Perrone-Bertolotti M, Lœvenbruck H. Dissociating facial electromyographic correlates of visual and verbal induced rumination. Int J Psychophysiol 2020; 159:23-36. [PMID: 33159987 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2020.10.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2020] [Revised: 09/18/2020] [Accepted: 10/21/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
Previous research showed that mental rumination, considered as a form of repetitive and negative inner speech, is associated with increased facial muscular activity. However, the relation between these muscular activations and the underlying mental processes is still unclear. In this study, we tried to separate the facial electromyographic correlates of induced rumination related to either i) mechanisms of (inner) speech production or ii) rumination as a state of pondering on negative affects. To this end, we compared two groups of participants submitted to two types of rumination induction (for a total of 85 female undergraduate students without excessive depressive symptoms). The first type of induction was designed to specifically induce rumination in a verbal modality whereas the second one was designed to induce rumination in a visual modality. Following the motor simulation view of inner speech production, we hypothesised that the verbal rumination induction should result in a higher increase of activity in the speech-related muscles as compared to the non-verbal rumination induction. We also hypothesised that relaxation focused on the orofacial area should be more efficient in reducing rumination (when experienced in a verbal modality) than a relaxation focused on a non-orofacial area. Our results do not corroborate these hypotheses, as both rumination inductions resulted in a similar increase of peripheral muscular activity in comparison to baseline levels. Moreover, the two relaxation types were similarly efficient in reducing rumination, whatever the rumination induction. We discuss these results in relation to the inner speech literature and suggest that because rumination is a habitual and automatic form of emotion regulation, it might be a particularly (strongly) internalised and condensed form of inner speech. Pre-registered protocol, preprint, data, as well as reproducible code and figures are available at: https://osf.io/c9pag/.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ladislas Nalborczyk
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France; Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium; GIPSA-lab, CNRS, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble INP, 38000 Grenoble, France.
| | - Sonja Banjac
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - Céline Baeyens
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, LIP/PC2S, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - Romain Grandchamp
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - Ernst H W Koster
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium
| | - Marcela Perrone-Bertolotti
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France; Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), France
| | - Hélène Lœvenbruck
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France
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Kompa NA, Mueller JL. How Abstract (Non-embodied) Linguistic Representations Augment Cognitive Control. Front Psychol 2020; 11:1597. [PMID: 32760327 PMCID: PMC7374353 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01597] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2020] [Accepted: 06/15/2020] [Indexed: 01/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Recent scholarship emphasizes the scaffolding role of language for cognition. Language, it is claimed, is a cognition-enhancing niche (Clark, 2006), a programming tool for cognition (Lupyan and Bergen, 2016), even neuroenhancement (Dove, 2019) and augments cognitive functions such as memory, categorization, cognitive control, and meta-cognitive abilities ("thinking about thinking"). Yet, the notion that language enhances or augments cognition, and in particular, cognitive control does not easily fit in with embodied approaches to language processing, or so we will argue. Accounts aiming to explain how language enhances various cognitive functions often employ a notion of abstract representation. Yet, embodied approaches to language processing have it that language processing crucially, according to some accounts even exclusively, involves embodied, modality-specific, i.e., non-abstract representations. In coming to understand a particular phrase or sentence, a prior experience has to be simulated or reenacted. The representation thus activated is embodied (modality-specific) as sensorimotor regions of the brain are thereby recruited. In this paper, we will first discuss the notion of representation, clarify what it takes for a representation to be embodied or abstract, and distinguish between conceptual and (other) linguistic representations. We will then put forward a characterization of cognitive control and examine its representational infrastructure. The remainder of the paper will be devoted to arguing that language augments cognitive control. To that end, we will draw on two lines of research, which investigate how language augments cognitive control: (i) research on the availability of linguistic labels and (ii) research on the active usage of a linguistic code, specifically, in inner speech. Eventually, we will argue that the cognition-enhancing capacity of language can be explained once we assume that it provides us with (a) abstract, non-embodied representations and with (b) abstract, sparse linguistic representations that may serve as easy-to-manipulate placeholders for fully embodied or otherwise more detailed representations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nikola A Kompa
- Institute of Philosophy, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany
| | - Jutta L Mueller
- Psycho/Neurolinguistics Group, Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany.,Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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Grandchamp R, Rapin L, Perrone-Bertolotti M, Pichat C, Haldin C, Cousin E, Lachaux JP, Dohen M, Perrier P, Garnier M, Baciu M, Lœvenbruck H. The ConDialInt Model: Condensation, Dialogality, and Intentionality Dimensions of Inner Speech Within a Hierarchical Predictive Control Framework. Front Psychol 2019; 10:2019. [PMID: 31620039 PMCID: PMC6759632 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2019] [Accepted: 08/19/2019] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Inner speech has been shown to vary in form along several dimensions. Along condensation, condensed inner speech forms have been described, that are supposed to be deprived of acoustic, phonological and even syntactic qualities. Expanded forms, on the other extreme, display articulatory and auditory properties. Along dialogality, inner speech can be monologal, when we engage in internal soliloquy, or dialogal, when we recall past conversations or imagine future dialogs involving our own voice as well as that of others addressing us. Along intentionality, it can be intentional (when we deliberately rehearse material in short-term memory) or it can arise unintentionally (during mind wandering). We introduce the ConDialInt model, a neurocognitive predictive control model of inner speech that accounts for its varieties along these three dimensions. ConDialInt spells out the condensation dimension by including inhibitory control at the conceptualization, formulation or articulatory planning stage. It accounts for dialogality, by assuming internal model adaptations and by speculating on neural processes underlying perspective switching. It explains the differences between intentional and spontaneous varieties in terms of monitoring. We present an fMRI study in which we probed varieties of inner speech along dialogality and intentionality, to examine the validity of the neuroanatomical correlates posited in ConDialInt. Condensation was also informally tackled. Our data support the hypothesis that expanded inner speech recruits speech production processes down to articulatory planning, resulting in a predicted signal, the inner voice, with auditory qualities. Along dialogality, covertly using an avatar's voice resulted in the activation of right hemisphere homologs of the regions involved in internal own-voice soliloquy and in reduced cerebellar activation, consistent with internal model adaptation. Switching from first-person to third-person perspective resulted in activations in precuneus and parietal lobules. Along intentionality, compared with intentional inner speech, mind wandering with inner speech episodes was associated with greater bilateral inferior frontal activation and decreased activation in left temporal regions. This is consistent with the reported subjective evanescence and presumably reflects condensation processes. Our results provide neuroanatomical evidence compatible with predictive control and in favor of the assumptions made in the ConDialInt model.
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Affiliation(s)
- Romain Grandchamp
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, Grenoble, France
| | - Lucile Rapin
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, Grenoble, France
| | | | - Cédric Pichat
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, Grenoble, France
| | - Célise Haldin
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, Grenoble, France
| | - Emilie Cousin
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, Grenoble, France
| | - Jean-Philippe Lachaux
- INSERM U1028, CNRS UMR5292, Brain Dynamics and Cognition Team, Lyon Neurosciences Research Center, Bron, France
| | - Marion Dohen
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, GIPSA-lab, Grenoble, France
| | - Pascal Perrier
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, GIPSA-lab, Grenoble, France
| | - Maëva Garnier
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, GIPSA-lab, Grenoble, France
| | - Monica Baciu
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, Grenoble, France
| | - Hélène Lœvenbruck
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, Grenoble, France
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Langland-Hassan P, Gauker C, Richardson MJ, Dietz A, Faries FR. Metacognitive deficits in categorization tasks in a population with impaired inner speech. Acta Psychol (Amst) 2017; 181:62-74. [PMID: 29054044 DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.10.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2017] [Revised: 10/06/2017] [Accepted: 10/08/2017] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
This study examines the relation of language use to a person's ability to perform categorization tasks and to assess their own abilities in those categorization tasks. A silent rhyming task was used to confirm that a group of people with post-stroke aphasia (PWA) had corresponding covert language production (or "inner speech") impairments. The performance of the PWA was then compared to that of age- and education-matched healthy controls on three kinds of categorization tasks and on metacognitive self-assessments of their performance on those tasks. The PWA showed no deficits in their ability to categorize objects for any of the three trial types (visual, thematic, and categorial). However, on the categorial trials, their metacognitive assessments of whether they had categorized correctly were less reliable than those of the control group. The categorial trials were distinguished from the others by the fact that the categorization could not be based on some immediately perceptible feature or on the objects' being found together in a type of scenario or setting. This result offers preliminary evidence for a link between covert language use and a specific form of metacognition.
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Kreutzfeldt M, Stephan DN, Willmes K, Koch I. Modality-specific preparatory influences on the flexibility of cognitive control in task switching. JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 2017. [DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2017.1293064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Denise N. Stephan
- Department of Neurology, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
| | - Klaus Willmes
- Department of Neurology, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
| | - Iring Koch
- Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
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Ren X, Wang T, Jarrold C. Individual Differences in Frequency of Inner Speech: Differential Relations with Cognitive and Non-cognitive Factors. Front Psychol 2016; 7:1675. [PMID: 27853439 PMCID: PMC5089968 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01675] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/08/2016] [Accepted: 10/12/2016] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Inner speech plays a crucial role in behavioral regulation and the use of inner speech is very common among adults. However, less is known about individual differences in the frequency of inner speech use and about the underlying processes that may explain why people exhibit individual differences in the frequency of inner speech use. This study was conducted to investigate how individual differences in the frequency of inner speech use are related to cognitive and non-cognitive factors. Four functions of inner speech including self-criticism, self-reinforcement, self-management, and social assessment measured by an adapted version of Brinthaupt's Self-Talk Scale were examined. The cognitive factors that were considered included executive functioning and complex reasoning and the non-cognitive factors consisted of trait anxiety and impulsivity. Data were collected from a large Chinese sample. Results revealed that anxiety and impulsivity were mainly related to the frequency of the affective function of inner speech (self-criticism and self-reinforcement) and executive functions and complex reasoning were mainly related to the frequency of the cognitive, self-regulatory function of inner speech (self-management).
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Affiliation(s)
- Xuezhu Ren
- School of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuhan, China
| | - Tengfei Wang
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang University Hangzhou, China
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