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Working Memory, from Baddeley 2003b
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The inner voice- we all know what it is because we all have it and use it when we are thinking or reading, for example. Little work has been done on it in our field, with the notable exception of Brian Tomlinson, but presumably it must be a cognitive phenomenon which is of great importance in thinking, language learning, and reading in a foreign la...
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Context 1
... are all familiar with the inner voice, as it accompanies our thinking, but although it is perhaps our most familiar companion, it is very difficult to specify exactly what it is. It is perhaps most often identified with the voice of the spirit or the conscience (the ‘still small voice’ of the Bible), or in a related sense, the voice of the ‘real you’; indeed, Vygotsky (1986 [1934]) argues that inner speech (we will be using the terms ‘inner voice’ and ‘inner speech’ interchangeably here, although the latter may imply a Vygotskian point of view) helps the individual to constitute his or her very inner life. In this sense, the inner voice is often the voice of integrity that reminds us of our principles. The inner voice is also what we think with, this language-productive module in our heads that works so unceasingly that we sometimes may wonder whether it is possible to shut it up! This irrepressibility makes us ask ourselves sometimes whether it is possible to think without language. At times the inner voice seems to be faint, as language impinges only slightly on our thoughts, while other modularities such as the visual take over. At other times it echoes in our heads as we perform complex operations such as mental arithmetic. We can even see it at work in other people as their speech organs form the shapes of words that we do not hear. But it rarely, if ever, seems to go away completely. From the time that it develops in tandem with our faltering efforts to express ourselves in early childhood, it remains with us for the rest of our lives. Some types of meditation are techniques to stop, even if only temporarily, the continual twitter of the inner voice, so that we may contemplate our existence without its constant interpolation. In psychotic interludes the inner voice may appear to take on an external reality of its own, and to take on a number of different identities, so that people possessed may speak of their ‘voices’. Indeed, we all may have different voices or perspectives on our inner voice. We may, for example, address ourselves as ‘I’, ‘you’, or ‘we’, depending on the situation (willingly imposed or unwillingly imposed obligation, for example). While we are reading, we may also hear different voices from different characters, particularly where the language and orthography indicate a particular dialect. It is hard to imagine hearing the voice of Huckleberry Finn in an English accent while reading the book. Working memory, which may in general be identified with short-term memory (simply a more general term), is described by Baddeley (2003a: 6) as “a temporary storage system which underpins our capacity for thinking”. The most widely accepted model (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974, Baddeley, 2001) consists of four components, as illustrated in Fig. 1. The central executive is akin to attention, the visuo-spatial scratchpad deals in the short term with visual images, the phonological loop with auditory information, and the episodic buffer temporarily combines the information from the senses to create a multisensory impression of what is happening. The timescale of working memory is in the region of 1-2 seconds, as long as it takes, say, to put a proposition together as a thought, and in this sense it is useful to think of it as the cognitive ‘present’, constantly changing with our thoughts and impressions. Indeed, since William James (1890) there have been thinkers who identify close- knit relationships between short-term memory and consciousness (e.g. Baars, 1997, Crick & Koch, 1998). The phonological loop can be divided into two parts- a short-term phonological store (inner ear), which retains the traces of speech attended to, and an articulatory rehearsal mechanism (inner voice), which assembles speech in preparation for its delivery. It is not clear to what extent these two elements are separate or aspects of the same thing, but there is evidence that they are associated with different areas of the brain- Brodmann’s area 44 and Broca’s area respectively (Baddeley 2003a: 1.1). It can also be demonstrated that the inner ear can still operate while articulation is repressed. Rayner and Pollatsek (1989), cited in Eysenck & Keane (1995, p. 312) point out: “...it is possible to have phonological coding without the appropriate subvocal articulation- if you read a text while saying ‘the the the’ over and over again, it is still possible to hear your own voice.” This points to the existence of both an inner voice and an inner ear as separate, if related, phenomena. In sociocultural theory (Vygotsky 1978), developing learners move from an ‘intermental’ (social) to an ‘intramental’ (psychological) state. Learners acquire language through co-operative activity (as in task-based learning), directed interactive behavior (as in ‘scaffolding’), and internalisation of speech patterns (‘inner speech’) (Mitchell & Myles 1998). Children playing, for example, will talk to themselves (private speech), but later this becomes internalised as inner speech. An important element of Vygotsky’s theory is mediation, where language is seen as a tool mediating between us and the outside world in the same way as a pencil and paper help us to do an arithmetic problem. Once speech has been internalised, it may return into the public domain under the pressure of an unexpected event, or a particularly knotty problem. Mental arithmetic is an example of a situation where the inner voice may become externalised. Vygotsky (1986: 249, cited in McCafferty & Ahmed, 2000: 201) characterises inner speech ...
Context 2
... memory, which may in general be identified with short-term memory (simply a more general term), is described by Baddeley (2003a: 6) as "a temporary storage system which underpins our capacity for thinking". The most widely accepted model (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974, Baddeley, 2001 consists of four components, as illustrated in Fig. 1. The central executive is akin to attention, the visuo-spatial scratchpad deals in the short term with visual images, the phonological loop with auditory information, and the episodic buffer temporarily combines the information from the senses to create a multisensory impression of what is happening. The timescale of working memory is ...
Citations
... Most of the studies on egocentric speech and inner speech, by researchers who have a theoretical and empirical origin in Piaget and Vygotsky, use methodological devices based on problematic situations (Heery 1989;Kinsbourne 2000;Ridgway 2009;Roberts 2008;Villagrán et al. 2002;Damianova et al. 2012;Silveira and Gomes 2012;among others). That is, they present participants with a specific task designed to display the inner speech function described from the very beginning of its study: problem solving. ...
The objective of this work was to develop a comprehensive model of inner mental activity’s trajectories. For this purpose, a review of updated research was conducted on the wandering mind topic - a phenomenon that has been recently conceptualized and that has become a focus of interest in cognitive sciences - alongside early psychological postulates on the inner speech phenomenon that were brought back to the surface of scientific literature. In summary, this article presents a reformulation of the spontaneous thought model by Andrews-Hanna et al. (2017), broadening its scope to approach inner mental activity in all its forms and transitions. It is concluded that modern cognitive research has overlooked the full complexity of different types and forms of consciousness’ expressions, understanding them as isolated phenomena and sub-dimensioning their trajectories during the flow of experience. This, mainly, due to a scarce incorporation of temporality and morphology to current theoretical models. It is proposed that cognitive acts described in modern research (spontaneous, controlled, involuntary, etc.) are, in synthesis, different symbolic and expressive natures of inner mental activity or thought phenomenon, which current literature has failed to understand as a whole. This article constitutes a contribution to future theoretical and experimental research that seeks out to explore the nature of thought and its development during a cognitive act.
... Piaget conducted studies on the child egocentric language and Vygotsky deepened and made reformulations to the Piagetian postulations. Subsequent studies of inner speech in contemporary psychology have a Vygotskian influence on the development of language and other higher cognitive processes (Heery, 1989;Kinsbourne, 2000;Ridgway, 2009;Roberts, 2008;Villagrán, Navarro, López & Alcalde, 2002;Damianova, Lucas & Sullivan, 2012;Silveira & Gomes, 2012;among others). In this study on inner speech experience, there is no evidence of an expressive dimension that had already been presented, though not directly, in philosophical works about the experience of speaking to oneself. ...
This article is a theoretical proposal about the expressive dimension of inner speech, a phenomenon that emphasizes the Karl Buhler's proposal in relation to the expressiveness of the language; the Heinz Werner´s studies about a physiognomic-organismic dimension of human language and the theoretical and empirical approach of Lev Vygotsky about the phenomenon of inner speech in human experience. It is concluded that some passages of Vygotsky's work are the keys to the comprehension of the expressive inner speech, specifically the influence of affective-volitional sphere in the development of thought and language. Finally, is proposed an integration of Vygotsky's monological conception of the inner speech, the Wernerian notion of physio-organismic language and the Bühlerian proposal of the expressive dimension of human language, for an integrative comprehension of the expressiveness of the inner speech.
... He observed that self-talk may be either internal or spoken aloud, and suggested that self-talk becomes increasingly internal as individuals mature. Self-talk goes by many names, including inner speech (Mitchell, Myles and Marsden 2013), internal dialogue (Chohan 2010), private speech (Diaz and Berk 2014), inner voice (Ridgway 2009), and the dialogical self (Puchalska-Wasyl, Chmielnicka-Kuter, and Oleś 2008), with each emphasizing the linguistic nature of the messages (Hardy 2006;Theodorakis, Natsis, Douma, and Kazakas 2000). ...
... Self-talk has been investigated in a number of other diverse disciplines, including philosophy (Sorabji 2006), psychology (Oliver, Markland and Hardy 2010;Puchalska-Wasyl 2014;Vygotsky 1986), language learning (Ridgway 2009;Tomlinson 2001), and education (Chohan 2010). Language acquisition researchers have argued that self-talk is a necessary component for effectively learning a second language (Tomlinson 2001). ...
Anecdotally, interpreters report experiencing self-talk before, during, and after assignments; however, this inner dialogue has neither been confirmed nor described in the literature. Prior studies suggest that guided self-talk can boost performance in learning and human performance activities. It follows that self-talk may also affect interpreting performance, either positively or negatively. In this study, reports of self-talk of American Sign Language-English interpreters were examined for the following characteristics: frequency, valence, overtness, self-determination, motivation, and function. Participants (N = 445) responded to online survey questions about the experience of self-talk in their interpreting work. For frequency , more than half of the respondents reported experiencing self-talk between 1–5 times during their work. Regarding valence , 62% of respondents reported a mix of positive and negative self-talk about their performance. For overtness , 62% reported talking (or signing) aloud in isolated settings about their work experiences. Regarding self-determination , nearly half of the respondents (48%) reported self-talk as a mix of conscious and unconscious thoughts. Eighty-nine percent of the respondents reported using self-talk for motivation , but 65% reported their self-talk was actually de-motivational at times. The most frequently reported function of self-talk was to improve interpreting. The findings offer a rich description of self-talk by American Sign Language-English interpreters. We suggest that more information about self-talk during interpretation may lead to greater self-awareness of the role of this phenomenon in working practitioners, as well as offer insights for the instruction of student interpreters.
El presente estudio tuvo por objetivo explorar funciones de lenguaje interior y su expresión en la gestualidad. Se solicitó a 2 estudiantes universitarios escuchar una música instrumental y luego referir los pensamientos internos en una entrevista retrospectiva video-asistida. Los resultados evidencian dos funciones del lenguaje interior: representacional y expresiva. La función representacional da cuenta de un lenguaje denotativo, conceptual y secuencial. Por otro lado, la función expresiva se relaciona con un lenguaje vivido, afectivo, difuso e imaginístico. El presente trabajo contribuye a los estudios de la consciencia humana y enfatiza la importancia de incluir el estudio de la gestualidad en la comprensión de la experiencia humana.
The present article reports the results of a quantitative exploratory study whose objective was to identify inner language forms and its expressive manifestations in gestures. 50 university students were individually submitted to two events of inner language elicitation: an instrumental music and a story. After each stimulus participants were asked to reflect in silence the contents elicited by each stimulus, and then participate in a qualitative video-assisted interview. Gestural categories were coded and analyzed through descriptive statistical analysis, Pearson's correlation and principal component analysis. The results show three forms of inner language that are associated with different nonverbal expressive movements. First, there is an inner language at the service of the control of thought associated with nonverbal movements of control and voluntary search of thought. Second, there is evidence of a cognitive effort inner language, which involves iterative gestures that manifest information processing. Finally, an inner physiognomy-organismic language, associated with non-verbal expressions that manifest an interiority full of sense. These findings contribute to the understanding of the symbols formation, describing their inner and outer forms, understanding the human experience as unique, total and holistic.
Este texto constituye una propuesta teórica sobre la dimensión expresiva del habla interna. Se describe el fenómeno de interés enfatizando la propuesta de Karl Bühler respecto a la expresividad del lenguaje, los estudios de Heinz Werner sobre una dimensión fisionómica-organísmica del lenguaje humano y la aproximación teórico-empírico de Lev Vygotsky respecto al fenómeno del habla interior en la experiencia humana. Se concluye que en algunos pasajes de la obra de Vygotsky están las claves para una comprensión del habla interna expresiva, específicamente en la influencia de la esfera afectivo-volitiva en el desarrollo del pensamiento y de la palabra. Finalmente, se propone una integración de la concepción monológica vygotskyana del lenguaje interior, la noción werneriana del lenguaje fisionómico-organísmico y la propuesta bühleriana de la dimensión expresiva del lenguaje humano, para una comprensión integradora de la expresividad del lenguaje interior.
Reading with an adult plays an important role in developing children's oral language skills, phonological awareness and print knowledge. Parental reading aloud is also an indicator of children's later academic success, which suggests that the practice may be further linked to children's development of broader academic skills and behaviour, such as persistence and the ability to sustain attention. In exploring this link, the present study draws on the growing literature on emotion and attention in learning. Theories of language and language development help to illuminate the auditory dimension of language and literacy learning. This article proposes that the power of parental reading aloud may be underestimated. While shared storybook reading enhances children's pre-reading skills, uninterrupted listening to narratives may assist children both to acquire the underpinning prosodic sensitivity that accompanies expressive reading aloud and to develop the auditory attention systems that are associated with academic achievement. This raises questions about the common classroom practice of shared reading, particularly for those children who have not had previous extensive exposure to the written language read aloud.
