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Are There Really People With No Inner Voice? Commentary on Nedergaard and Lupyan (2024).
1Lund University Cognitive Science, Lund University.
Psychological Science
|May 27, 2025
Summary
Some individuals may have reduced inner speech, impacting cognitive tasks like memory and judgment. However, evidence for a complete lack of inner speech, termed anendophasia, remains inconclusive.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience of Language
Background:
- The concept of inner speech, or internal monologue, is widely studied.
- Recent research explored variations in inner speech prevalence and its cognitive correlates.
Purpose of the Study:
- To critically evaluate the claim that some individuals completely lack inner speech.
- To examine the evidence presented for the proposed trait of anendophasia.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of a study comparing individuals with high and low self-reported inner speech prevalence.
- Review of cognitive performance data, including verbal working memory and rhyme judgments.
Main Results:
- Participants with lower inner speech prevalence performed worse on verbal working memory tasks.
- Slower and less accurate responses were observed in the low inner speech group during rhyme judgments.
Conclusions:
- The study provides original data on the cognitive effects of reduced inner speech.
- The conclusion that some individuals entirely lack inner speech (anendophasia) is not sufficiently supported by the presented evidence.
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