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Not Everybody Has an Inner Voice: Behavioral Consequences of Anendophasia

DOI: 10.1177/09567976241243004
Nedergaard, J. S. K., & Lupyan, G. (2024). Not everybody has an inner voice: behavioral consequences of anendophasia. Psychological Science, 35(7), 780–797. doi:10.1177/09567976241243004

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.

Authors

  • Johanne S. K. Nedergaard1
  • Gary Lupyan2

What This Study Is About

Researchers wanted to know if lacking an "inner voice"—the little narrator in your head—actually changes how you solve problems. They gave this experience a new name: anendophasia.

How They Studied It

The team recruited 93 people: about half reported having a very active inner voice, while the other half reported having almost none. Participants completed four "brain games" online. These included a rhyme-judgment task (looking at pictures of a "sock" and a "clock" and deciding if they rhyme) and a memory test where they had to remember lists of words that sounded similar.

What They Found

The study discovered that having a "silent" mind does make certain tasks trickier. People with anendophasia were less accurate at judging rhymes and struggled more to remember word lists compared to those with a loud inner voice.
However, they were just as good at switching between different tasks (like jumping from addition to subtraction). This suggests that while an inner voice helps with verbal tasks, it isn't necessary for everything our brains do.

What This Might Mean

This research suggests that an inner voice acts like a "mental scratchpad" that helps us hold onto verbal information. If you don't have that scratchpad, you might have to work a bit harder on language-based puzzles.
Because this study relied on people describing their own internal experiences (which can be hard to put into words!), we can't say for sure that these differences apply to everyone. It *suggests* that our "mental toolboxes" look different, but it doesn't *prove* that one way of thinking is better than the other—just different!

One Interesting Detail

The researchers found a "hack" for the silent group: when people with anendophasia were allowed to speak out loud during the tests, their performance improved and matched the other group! They used their physical voice to do the work their "mental voice" wasn't doing.
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Wait, what is Aphantasia?
While this study focuses on the "inner voice," it’s closely related to aphantasia—the inability to create mental imagery (picturing things in your mind’s eye). Just as some people can’t "see" a sunset in their heads, people with anendophasia can’t "hear" their own thoughts as spoken words.
This summary was generated by AI and may contain errors. Always refer to the original paper for accuracy.