Selftalk and Thinking
One of the most important and least recognized features of the human mind is
selftalk. In adults, selftalk is described as "thinking" or “reflection.”
Aristotle declared that thinking was “inner speech” and he defined the rules of
logic, the proper methods of constructing relationships among statements.
Selftalk is a continuous narrative feature of the mind. Through selftalk,
language becomes a dominant feature of cognition. Narrative dominance enables
some of the best cognitive abilities that humans display, but narrative
dominance can also be disabling.
The recognition that selftalk is thought resolves tedious debates about the
relationship of language to cognition. It is no longer necessary to argue that
the structure and content of languages influence thinking. Language is thinking.
It is also necessary to understand that most human action is independent of
language. Most decisions are made quickly by subconscious processes that are
independent of language. Most skills are learned mimetically and deployed
without the intervention of language.
It is also necessary to appreciate that language has become mathematics,
computer programming and other symbolic representations of the world out there
that allow humans to describe more precisely what is going on out there. Greater
precision permits greater control of their actions in the world.
Selftalk (thought) begins in children learning language, connecting words to
their experiences and actions. Language skills develop slowly in a predetermined
sequence that requires daily practice. The meaning of words and sentences
develops as sounds are linked to experiences in real time. Children will talk to
themselves as they play and learn. Their monologues begin with repeating words
and statements they copy and extends to problem-solving and creative narratives
that expand the range of linguistic ability.
A two-year old will walk around repeating words and simple phrases without an
audience. A four-year old girl can sound quite convincing as she speaks to her
dolls or pets in long narratives, acting as a competent parent. As children
play, problem solve, learn new skills they will often talk to themselves much
like a voice-over monologue in a documentary movie.
The child’s narrative will reveal how their cognitive processes are developed. A
sensitive adult will learn much by quietly listening and sometimes can add some
direction or advice, without inhibiting the child’s selftalk. As children
mature, their spoken private monologues become silent continuing in the privacy
of their mind as selftalk. Laura Berk studied the private talk of children and
suggested:” As a child gains mastery over his or her behavior, private speech
need not occur in a fully expanded from; the self after all is an understanding
listener. Children omit words and phrases that refer to things they already
know. They state only those aspects that seem puzzling. As they practice,
children start to “think words” rather than saying them. Gradually. private
speech becomes internalized as silent inner speech aka thoughts.”
Selftalk is desirable to review, to learn from experience, to rehearse and to
cope with threats. Selftalk, as rehearsal, prepares speeches that will be use in
future encounters. Fantasy is selftalk in the form of internal story
telling with good outcomes. Fantasy is rehearsal, reassurance, integral parts of
regenerating interest in projecting oneself into the world. Threats generate the
most compulsive self-talk in the form of conversations that repeat as endless
loop tapes. Threat responses can be either combative or conciliatory.
A threatened self-talker will try different strategies of replying to a
threat, and will be preoccupied. Worry describes the self-talk responses to
threats. Other terms such as reflection, contemplation and silent prayer refer
to self-talk. Some commentators have confused consciousness with language. This
is an understandable mistake when you realize that selftalk is a prevalent
experience.
Professional story-tellers such as book writers and university professors
spend their idle time talking to themselves and refer to selftalk as “thinking
and reasoning.” The dominance of the personal narrative is a feature of mind
activity that separates humans from other animals.
This narrative function lies in the left hemisphere in most people and is
generated from the specialized language processing centers in the temporal and
frontal lobes. The narrative appears whenever a human is conscious. The narrator
emerges with dream recollections as a sleeper becomes conscious. Dream activity
involves the whole brain, but the left temporal lobe reports the event, using
the style of fictional narrative
The selftalk narrator appears to be an innate feature of the human mind that
has an agenda of its own. Humans, like myself, who attempt to control the
narrator encounter stubborn resistance and generally concede that you cannot
change the narrator’s scripts. Masking self talk works briefly. You can
use a mantra that you repeat to mask the narrator. You can use music and other
sounds that are designed to have a masking effect.
Gazzaniga described the specialization of left and right cerebral
hemispheres. He suggested that the left hemisphere has a conscious experience
different from the literal right brain that lives in the present. The left
hemisphere attempts to explain everything and always comes up with a theory, no
matter how outlandish. The left side specializes in the selftalk narrative.
Gazzaniga stated: “The human brain is a collection of neurological adaptations
established through natural selection. These adaptations each have their own
representation—that is, they can be lateralized to specific regions or networks
in the brain. But throughout the animal kingdom, capacities are generally not
lateralized. Instead they tend to be found in both hemispheres to roughly equal
degrees. And although monkeys show some signs of lateral specialization, these
are rare and inconsistent. It has always appeared that the lateralization seen
in the human brain was an evolutionary add-on … (we speculated) that some
lateralized phenomena may arise from a hemisphere’s losing ability, not gaining
it. In what must have been fierce competition for cortical space, the evolving
primate brain would have been hard-pressed to gain new faculties without losing
old ones. Lateralization could have been its salvation. Because the two
hemispheres are connected, mutational tinkering with a homologous cortical
region could give rise to a new function—yet not cost the animal, because the
other side would remain unaffected.”
The whole notion of an inner monologue that is continuously active in the
minds of all humans is precarious since there is no direct evidence and no
objective criteria for this activity. Only the person who is experiencing
selftalk as an inner monologue knows that this is occurring and many observers
have little insight into their own process and may not recognize or report
selftalk. This is a problem of studying your own consciousness, observing from a
meta-monitor position that is somehow aloof, detached from the flow events
passing through consciousness including selftalk. The high goal of meditation
practice is to reside in the metamonitor, undisturbed by emotion or feelings; to
be calm, clear, stable and present. You are instructed by ancient texts to
observe the inner monologue but to remain detached from it. I experience my
“thoughts”. I am not my “thoughts”.
