I was bemused, and thought... "people think in words?"
Apparently people with ADHD or Autism can develop the inner voice later in life.
In my 20s, language colonized my brain. Took me years of meditation to get some peace and quiet back...
I do meditate here and now, but sooner or later the constant stream of words will 100% set in again, usually during or immediately after meditation. And these words for example tell me or discuss whether I should go shower, go to gym, do dishes, or whatever. And in the end I'll decide based on that discussion and do it. It's weird how defined I am by this inner voice.
I struggle to imagine how people can find the time to consider all of these trivial choices verbally - in my case it all happens almost instantaneously and the whole process is easy to miss. I also don’t see what the monologue adds to the process - just skip this part and make the decision!
That said, I do use an inner voice when writing, preparing what to say to someone, etc. and I feel like I struggle with this way of thinking much more.
Occasionally there is some snippet of a sentence I imagine, but it’s almost always cut off prior to finishing the sentence. If I imagine writing something, though, I’ll speak it to myself in my head.
Funnily enough, I’m a pretty weak mental visualiser too. I don’t have aphantasia but metal images are very transparent and dark.
It’s also consistent with our intuition that toddlers have consciousness and thoughts and other mammals at least consciousness (and emotions) without language.
What do you mean "think in words"? Is it like a narrator, or a discussion like Herman's Head? Are you hearing these words all the time or only when making decisions?
In my personal experience, my mind became much less busy as a result of several steps. One being abandoning the theory of mind -- in contrast to spiritual practices such as Zen and forms of Hinduism, where controlling the mind, preventing its misbehavior, or getting rid of it somehow is frequently described as a goal, the mind's activity being to blame for a loss of a person's ability to be present in the here and now.
As a teenager, I can remember trying to plan in advance what I will say to a person when faced with a situation of conflict, or maybe desire toward the opposite sex, doubting that language will reliably sprout from my feelings when facing a person, whose facial reactions (and my dependence on their good will) pulls me out of my mental emotional kinesthetic grounding.
As humans we use language, however, it seems possible to live in our experience. Some people who are alienated from their experience, or overwhelmed by others, seek refuge in language.
There is obviously a gap between research such as this, and how someone can make sense of their agency in life, finding their way forward when confronted with conflict, uncertainty, etc.
Up until that point language was just an extension of what she already knew, it was the learning of being other that did the trick. Being blind and deaf would certainly make it hard to draw a distinction between the self and the world, and while languaged helped her get that concept under wraps, i dont think it's strictly speaking required. Just one of many avenues towards.
If there are other avenues other than language, how would we know?
I think language is a medium that enables this kind of structured thought. Without it, I cannot imagine reaching this level of abstraction (understanding being a "self").
Perhaps there are also multiple human paths to higher-level thought, with Keller (who lost her sight) using the language facility while others don't have to.
* Given Box 1 contents, the article authors seem unaware of the research on this? e.g.
https://www.youcubed.org/resource/visual-mathematics/
https://www.hilarispublisher.com/open-access/seeing-as-under...
I am glad humans are meaningfully smarter than chimps, and not merely more vocal. Helen Keller herself seemed to think that learning language finally helped her understand what this weird language thing was:
I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, set it free!