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I find that I'm able to deliberately structure my thoughts in what feels like a string of real English words without much difficulty, yet I have a very similar feeling of being slowed down when I attempt to speak those thoughts out loud in real time. The extra effort required is strange, considering the research showing that internally vocalized thoughts are reflexively subvocalized by the associated muscles. The only difference between thinking and speaking should thus be the increase in amplitude and precision of muscle movement required to make the vocalization intelligible. Is that alone enough to so greatly impact the ability to think? Or could the brain be deceiving itself in whether its vocalized thoughts are in fact complete English words? Perhaps there's something to be seen from the fact that I find myself automatically inserting filler words even when trying to dictate these raw thoughts to a recording. I'm fairly sure I don't use them in my internal thoughts, and whenever I use one when dictating those thoughts, it feels like my train of thought comes to a halt. Perhaps, when I need to take time to consider something abstract that cannot be vocalized, my internal vocalization is able to pause without me noticing, but audible speaking reflexively fills in the silence in a manner disruptive to thinking? This all contrasts with my writing of this comment, where my typing is far slower and more measured than my thinking, such that I'm jumping between sentences to insert new thoughts related to something I've already written and delete what now feels unimportant. And the process of handwriting is again different, being even slower and very limited in the ability to modify what's already written. I gather, then, that these are all distinct "modes" of the brain putting thoughts into language, each with different levels of perceived difficulty, actual words per minute, and resulting quality/linguistic register. Edit: clarity |