Who do you hear when you read?

[bilby]

Think about the complex shape of a beautiful woman, or of a canyon, or of a crankshaft from a V8 engine. What language did you use to describe that complex idea to yourself? Or did you just imagine it without language?

I just heard those sentences in my head. And yes, Sam Elliot said it until you mentioned the V-8 engine. When the engine was mentioned, I heard a neighbor of mine. He's always doing stuff to cars. I think it is all random, but it is all there. I don't deny that you believe there is no voice in your head. Maybe you think in sine waves, like the cool presets on a musician's keyboard. Maybe bells. Crickets. There has GOT to be something making sound in there, bilby.

Nope. No sound.

I guess we just have different ways of processing the written word.

 

[bilby]

In the case of the deaf they have to associate the entire word with a mental "picture" of some kind. They still have to be taught which "picture" to associate with which word.

Yeah. Maybe bilby thinks in symbols. Maybe you're really good at math, and you do visual math. Me, I hear actresses and actors most of the time. Maybe you're either a visual or auditory thinker. Or a silent one (not likely). But yes there is a separate process happening outside reading, writing and even thinking - and the process has a sound or sight that we can't see out here in the physical world, even if it originates there.

Nope, no symbols either.

Reading is just reading. It's no more like sound than sight is; and no more like sight than is smell. It's totally different from all of these. It's reading.

 

[untermensche]

That's hysterical.

I go out of my way to make the distinction between this and the deaf and some still like wild pigs refuse to make any rational connections.

Arguing for the sake of argument is a game for children.

We all can clearly see who is doing it.

Indeed we can.

So are you still claiming I need a citation for the painfully obvious observation that people need to be taught to read?

 

[another1]

bilby you don't hear the voice but I don't think you're disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. Not with me, anyway. Do you REALLY hear nothing when you think, bilby? When you read? Do I not sound like Keanu Reeves circa Bill n Ted half the time? Listen. You don't hear it dude? I'm asking because that is rare. It is radical to think about. Excellent to talk directly to someone who has no noise in their brain-piece.

 

[untermensche]

I just heard those sentences in my head. And yes, Sam Elliot said it until you mentioned the V-8 engine. When the engine was mentioned, I heard a neighbor of mine. He's always doing stuff to cars. I think it is all random, but it is all there. I don't deny that you believe there is no voice in your head. Maybe you think in sine waves, like the cool presets on a musician's keyboard. Maybe bells. Crickets. There has GOT to be something making sound in there, bilby.

Nope. No sound.

I guess we just have different ways of processing the written word.

You're not doing more.

You're doing less.

Everybody also has the pictures and flashes of emotions or ideas.

 

[untermensche]

In the case of the deaf they have to associate the entire word with a mental "picture" of some kind. They still have to be taught which "picture" to associate with which word.

Yeah. Maybe bilby thinks in symbols. Maybe you're really good at math, and you do visual math. Me, I hear actresses and actors most of the time. Maybe you're either a visual or auditory thinker. Or a silent one (not likely). But yes there is a separate process happening outside reading, writing and even thinking - and the process has a sound or sight that we can't see out here in the physical world, even if it originates there.

Thinking does not require words. But most people "hear" many of their thoughts. They experience them as sound.

Making sounds when you read is probably a practiced skill.

Practiced skills can become very easy, almost second nature, like walking, with enough practice.

 

[another1]

Thinking does not require words. But most people "hear" many of their thoughts. They experience them as sound.

When we learn languages, do our thinking patterns change? Do we think less efficiently when our innate, instinctive brain sounds change to spoken language?

 

[another1]

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlRbSMywTQg[/YOUTUBE]

Your mind may be cursed forever, now. Try resisting Sam.

 

[bilby]

Nope. No sound.

I guess we just have different ways of processing the written word.

You're not doing more.

You're doing less.

Everybody also has the pictures and flashes of emotions or ideas.

I have no idea whether I am doing more, or less, or the same amount - and NOR DO YOU.

I do know that you are wrong about what you claim 'everybody' has, though.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah. Maybe bilby thinks in symbols. Maybe you're really good at math, and you do visual math. Me, I hear actresses and actors most of the time. Maybe you're either a visual or auditory thinker. Or a silent one (not likely). But yes there is a separate process happening outside reading, writing and even thinking - and the process has a sound or sight that we can't see out here in the physical world, even if it originates there.

Thinking does not require words. But most people "hear" many of their thoughts. They experience them as sound.

Making sounds when you read is probably a practiced skill.

Practiced skills can become very easy, almost second nature, like walking, with enough practice.

Your guesses are not facts, no matter how much you feel as though they ought to be.

 

[untermensche]

Thinking does not require words. But most people "hear" many of their thoughts. They experience them as sound.

Making sounds when you read is probably a practiced skill.

Practiced skills can become very easy, almost second nature, like walking, with enough practice.

Your guesses are not facts, no matter how much you feel as though they ought to be.

Tis a shame you have nothing of any substance to add.

Are you still claiming there are people who can read without being taught?

 

[Malintent]

I don't hear a voice while reading, and I'm not dyslexic.

Conclude from this what you will.

Then how do you comprehend? I just tried reading this without a "voice" (in quotes, because it is not a "sound") and my eyes automatically shot across the page like I was skimming it. To be able to fully comprehend what I am reading, I have to place it into my conscious. My conscious is an unending train of thought full of voices and images. I do not have the ability to unconsciously transform language (reading) into knowledge, bypassing comprehension through my consciousness.

 

[Malintent]

Yeah. Maybe bilby thinks in symbols. Maybe you're really good at math, and you do visual math. Me, I hear actresses and actors most of the time. Maybe you're either a visual or auditory thinker. Or a silent one (not likely). But yes there is a separate process happening outside reading, writing and even thinking - and the process has a sound or sight that we can't see out here in the physical world, even if it originates there.

Nope, no symbols either.

Reading is just reading. It's no more like sound than sight is; and no more like sight than is smell. It's totally different from all of these. It's reading.

reading is not a sense. all the other things you list are. Reading is the comprehension of symbols into ideas. the ideas do not lift magically off of the page, through your eyes, and into your brain as plot lines.

 

[Malintent]

Thinking does not require words. But most people "hear" many of their thoughts. They experience them as sound.

When we learn languages, do our thinking patterns change? Do we think less efficiently when our innate, instinctive brain sounds change to spoken language?

kind of, yes. Babies are capable of making every sound used in any human language when they are born. as they learn the language they are exposed to, they "forget" how to make the unused sounds. that is why multilingual people have accents. I think I posted this recently, regarding the motions that babies are able to do... babies can independently operate all of their limbs.. unlike adults who lose that ability and become "lefty" or "righty" and cannot tap their heads while rubbing their belly, as an example..

Language is a product of culture... learning a foreign language involves understanding some aspects of that culture. So, culture impacts thinking, not through language necessarily, but both are products.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I would guess that i could not pun as much as i do if i did not hear a voice in my head when reading.
I have a basic voice for all things i don't already associate with a particular speaker, and a different voice for things i imagine myself saying.

I do notice that when i 'read' a technical diagram, i do not 'hear' things like line, ground, interface, light, indicator, pushbutton. I do not hear the shapes like square, delta, circle, left-pointing arrow, up arrow, etc. Such things can be comprehended by my mind without a narrator making words of them.
And on a suspicion, i just went and reviewed an interface diagram for the Data Entry Subsystem right now. I did not 'hear' the words that label the squares, or lines, or interfaces. I can read DESS Display inside a box that indicates the little screen where DESS tells the operator what's going on, without actually hearing DESS DISPLAY the way i do when i read the technical description in text. Rather, it's filed as part of the picture in my head.

So, I'm not as non-verbal as Bilby, but i can see it from where I'm standing...

 

[KeepTalking]

Selflessly I did the research for you and discovered that 80% of us hear "the voice". If not, we may be dyslexic or insane (according to scientific studies).

Let me know what you hear when you think, pray, write or read. I'm interested in the reading part right now, but please share anything relative. Your opinions are important and you matter. Don't sell yourself short and miss out.

I am dyslexic, and I do hear a "voice" when reading. Typically it is the same "voice" I hear when thinking, which I think is an idealized version of my own speaking voice. When I first started attending grade school, in kindergarten, it was discovered that I was dyslexic. Fortunately, I had a great teacher who took the time to work with me, and my dyslexia was never a problem after that. It does surface, however, very occasionally when I am extremely tired, but it is a visual issue with letters appearing in reverse order. I am not sure how it would be expected to affect my inner voice.

When reading dialogue I often hear a different voice. When I know what the person sounds like who spoke the words, I hear their voice. So, if I am reading Trump's latest Twit, I hear his stupid voice. Similarly, if reading dialogue from a fictional character who was played by a specific actor at some point, I will often hear that actor's voice, but not always. It will depend on if I was very familiar with reading the character's dialog before having seen the actor portray them. So, for example, if I am reading a Batman comic, Batman is in my inner voice, since I have been reading them since I was a kid. On the other hand, I have noticed that when I read a comic with Captain Cold in it these days, I hear Wentworth Miller's voice, because he is the actor that portrays Captain Cold on TV. I had certainly been exposed to Captain Cold in comics before he was a character on TV, but he wasn't enough of a recurring character for my inner voice to take over for his dialogue, apparently.

Finally, when reading dialogue from a character described as being of a certain nationality, such as Irish, Russian, etc., I hear the common accent of that nationality. This works with any described accent, really. So, yeah, when I read dialogue that is described as a Texan accent, I hear Sam Elliot, or my father-in-law, who sounds just like Sam Elliot.

 

[bilby]

Your guesses are not facts, no matter how much you feel as though they ought to be.

Tis a shame you have nothing of any substance to add.

Are you still claiming there are people who can read without being taught?

I never made any such claim, as you are well aware.

Are you still living under the delusion that you can 'win' a debate by simply misrepresenting your opponent?

 

[bilby]

I don't hear a voice while reading, and I'm not dyslexic.

Conclude from this what you will.

Then how do you comprehend? I just tried reading this without a "voice" (in quotes, because it is not a "sound") and my eyes automatically shot across the page like I was skimming it. To be able to fully comprehend what I am reading, I have to place it into my conscious. My conscious is an unending train of thought full of voices and images. I do not have the ability to unconsciously transform language (reading) into knowledge, bypassing comprehension through my consciousness.

It's conscious; but it's no more a 'voice' when reading than it is when looking at a graph, or smelling something pungent.

 

[bilby]

Nope, no symbols either.

Reading is just reading. It's no more like sound than sight is; and no more like sight than is smell. It's totally different from all of these. It's reading.

reading is not a sense. all the other things you list are. Reading is the comprehension of symbols into ideas. the ideas do not lift magically off of the page, through your eyes, and into your brain as plot lines.

I am not convinced that it is fundamentally different from any other sense. There's no magic involved, but there's no voices either.

For what it's worth I have always been a very fast, and an avid reader; I learned to read rather younger than average; and I am almost as fast at reading text upside down as the right way up - a skill that others, I am told, lack.

Translation of text to sound, and then of sound to thought, strikes me as very inefficient.

 

[jab]

Let me know what you hear when you think, pray, write or read.

To the extent I experience a sounding voice when I am reading--it is my own voice, not as I hear it when recorded but as I hear it when I speak. When I read, this voice is generally nearly or completely muted. Sometimes, during intense or very involving passages, I will hear this voice of mine "doing" the voice of the author as I image her/ him, or "doing" the voice of a character.

When I think, I sometimes hear the voices of other people--people I know, very occasionally famous people, but when I do it is always in discussion with my own voice, as a sort of dialectic exercise to explain or clarify something, or as a sounding board.

When I write a piece of fiction, I often hear the voices of characters in dialogue or in tracing their thought processes.

I haven't prayed in nearly 50 years; back when I did, it was my own voice I heard clearly--no-one ever replied verbally.

 

[jab]

Selflessly I did the research for you and discovered that 80% of us hear "the voice". If not, we may be dyslexic or insane (according to scientific studies).

Let me know what you hear when you think, pray, write or read. I'm interested in the reading part right now, but please share anything relative. Your opinions are important and you matter. Don't sell yourself short and miss out.

I am dyslexic, and I do hear a "voice" when reading. Typically it is the same "voice" I hear when thinking, which I think is an idealized version of my own speaking voice. When I first started attending grade school, in kindergarten, it was discovered that I was dyslexic. Fortunately, I had a great teacher who took the time to work with me, and my dyslexia was never a problem after that. It does surface, however, very occasionally when I am extremely tired, but it is a visual issue with letters appearing in reverse order. I am not sure how it would be expected to affect my inner voice.

When reading dialogue I often hear a different voice. When I know what the person sounds like who spoke the words, I hear their voice. So, if I am reading Trump's latest Twit, I hear his stupid voice. Similarly, if reading dialogue from a fictional character who was played by a specific actor at some point, I will often hear that actor's voice, but not always. It will depend on if I was very familiar with reading the character's dialog before having seen the actor portray them. So, for example, if I am reading a Batman comic, Batman is in my inner voice, since I have been reading them since I was a kid. On the other hand, I have noticed that when I read a comic with Captain Cold in it these days, I hear Wentworth Miller's voice, because he is the actor that portrays Captain Cold on TV. I had certainly been exposed to Captain Cold in comics before he was a character on TV, but he wasn't enough of a recurring character for my inner voice to take over for his dialogue, apparently.

Finally, when reading dialogue from a character described as being of a certain nationality, such as Irish, Russian, etc., I hear the common accent of that nationality. This works with any described accent, really. So, yeah, when I read dialogue that is described as a Texan accent, I hear Sam Elliot, or my father-in-law, who sounds just like Sam Elliot.

My previous post makes it clear that I "hear" similarly to you--not quite the same, but close. What I didn't mention in that post was my dyslexia, which was also handled well by a couple of educators when I was a very small child. By grade 3 I was acing standardized reading tests in speed and comprehension--getting more than 100% based on the achievements of the test subjects whose scores standardized the test--the same thing happened with a standardized reading test in Grade 9. I have a PHD in English Literature and am a semi-retired prof of English literature. I still read a lot professionally and for pleasure and I'm good at it.