RESUMEN
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.
Asunto(s)
Memoria a Corto Plazo , Habla , Humanos , Masculino , Femenino , Adulto , Memoria a Corto Plazo/fisiología , Adulto Joven , Juicio/fisiología , Pensamiento/fisiologíaRESUMEN
In a recent paper, Aceves and Evans computed information and semantic density measures for hundreds of languages, and showed that these measures predict the pace and breadth of ideas in communication. Here, we summarize their key findings and situate them in a broader debate about the adaptive nature of language.
Asunto(s)
Comunicación , Lenguaje , Humanos , SemánticaRESUMEN
What determines whether two people represent something in a similar way? We examined the role of verbal labels in promoting representational alignment. Across two experiments, three groups of participants sorted novel shapes from two visually dissimilar categories. Prior to sorting, participants in two of the groups were pre-exposed to the shapes using a simple visual matching task designed to reinforce the visual category structure. In one of these groups, participants additionally heard one of two nonsense category labels accompanying the shapes. Exposure to these redundant labels led people to represent the shapes in a more categorical way, which led to greater alignment between sorters. We found this effect of label-induced alignment despite the two categories being highly visually distinct and despite participants in both pre-exposure conditions receiving identical visual experience with the shapes. Experiment 2 replicated this basic result using more even more stringent testing conditions. The results hint at the possibly extensive role that labels may play in aligning people's mental representations.