Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire

Assessing the quality of your inner speech.

Hosted By Aphantasia Network

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Do you engage in internal dialogue?

The Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire (VISQ) is used to assess the quality of your inner speech. This internal dialogue is the inner voice or conversation you might experience in your mind.

The VISQ explores different aspects of inner speech, such as:

Dialogic: How much your inner speech feels like a back-and-forth conversation
Condensed: How abbreviated or shorthand-like your inner speech is
Other People: How often you experience other people’s voices in your inner speech
Evaluative/Critical: How much your inner speech involves self-evaluation or self-criticism
Positive/Regulatory: How much your inner speech is used for positive self-talk or self-regulation

Note: This survey is not a diagnostic tool. It is part of a research study exploring whether different varieties of inner speech might occur with imagination extremes, aphantasia and hyperphantasia.

Instructions: Please read each statement carefully and indicate how frequently you have experiences like this. There are no right or wrong answers, so please be as honest as possible in your responses.

How frequently do you have these experiences?

I think to myself in words using brief phrases and single words rather than full sentences*

When I am talking to myself about things in my mind, it is like I am going back and forward asking myself questions and then answering them*

I hear the voice of another person in my head. For example, when I act in a certain way I hear my mother’s voice in my mind*

I experience the voices of other people asking me questions in my head*

I hear other people’s voices nagging me in my head*

My thinking in words is more like a dialogue with myself, rather than my own thoughts in a monologue*

I think to myself in words using full sentences*

My thinking to myself in words is like shorthand notes, rather than full, proper, grammatical English*

I think in inner speech about what I have done, and whether it was right or not*

When I am talking to myself about things in my mind, it is like I am having a conversation with myself*

I talk silently in my head telling myself to do things*

I hear other people’s actual voices in my head, saying things that they have never said to me before*

I talk back and forward to myself in my mind about things*

My thinking in words is shortened compared to my normal out-loud speech. For example, rather than saying to myself things like ‘I need to go to the store,’ I will just say ‘store’ to myself in my head*

If I were to write down my thoughts on paper, they would read like a normal grammatical sentence*

I hear other people’s actual voices in my head, saying things that they actually once said to me*

I talk silently in my inner speech telling myself not to do things*

I evaluate my behaviour using my inner speech. For example, I say to myself, ‘that was good’ or ‘that was stupid’*

I talk to myself silently in an encouraging way*

In my head I talk to myself a critical way*

Certain words or sentences repeat in my head*

I think to myself in the second person, saying things like “You can do this” or “You forgot to do that”*

When I think in words, it feels more like I am speaking than listening*

When I think in words, it is like listening to a recording of my voice*

My thinking in words is like a speech or a monologue, rather than a conversation*

I am in control of my inner speech*

I calm myself down by talking silently to myself*

What I say in my inner speech makes me feel anxious*

I use metaphors and expressions in my inner speech, such as “This is such a nightmare”*

My train of inner verbal thought can lead to me feeling very excited*

My inner speech contributes to me feeling down and depressed*

When angry, my inner speech can help calm me down*

I am surprised by the content of my inner speech*

There are certain words or phrases that I can’t get out of my head*

When I think to myself in words about upsetting things, I can easily change topics in my mind and talk to myself about other things*

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This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Alderson-Day, B., Mitrenga, K., Wilkinson, S., McCarthy-Jones, S., & Fernyhough, C. (2018). The varieties of inner speech questionnaire - Revised (VISQ-R): Replicating and refining links between inner speech and psychopathology. Consciousness and Cognition, 65, 48–58. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2018.07.001

Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire

Do you engage in internal dialogue?

Help advance our studies by participating in our surveys.

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Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire

Do you engage in internal dialogue?

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Help advance our studies by participating in our surveys.

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