Intrapersonal communication
Encyclopedia
Intrapersonal communication is language
use or thought
internal to the communicator. It can be useful to envision intrapersonal communication occurring in the mind of the individual in a model which contains a sender, receiver, and feedback loop.
In Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry, Jurgen Ruesch
and Gregory Bateson
argue that intrapersonal communication is indeed a special case of interpersonal communication
, as "dialogue is the foundation for all discourse."
Intrapersonal communication can encompass:
, who observed that children will often narrate their actions out loud before eventually replacing the habit with the adult equivalent: sub-vocal articulation. During sub-vocal articulation, no sound is made but the mouth still moves. Eventually, adults may learn to inhibit their mouth movements, although they still experience the words as "inner speech".
Jones and Fernyhough cite other evidence for this hypothesis that inner speech is essentially like any other action. They mention that schizophrenics suffering auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) need only open their mouths in order to disrupt the voices in their heads. To try and explain more about how inner speech works, but also what goes wrong with AVH patients, Jones and Fernyhough adapt what is known as the "forward model" of motor control, which uses the idea of "efferent copies".
In a forward model of motor control, the mind generates movement unconsciously. While information is sent to the necessary body parts, the mind basically faxes a copy of that same information to other areas of the brain. This "efferent" copy could then be used to make predictions about upcoming movements. If the actual sensations match predictions, we experience the feeling of agency. If there is a mismatch between the body and its predicted position, perhaps due to obstructions or other cognitive disruption, no feeling of agency occurs.
Jones and Fernyhough believe that the forward model might explain AVH and inner speech. Perhaps, if inner speech is a normal action, then the malfunction in schizophrenic patients is not the fact that actions (i.e. voices) are occurring at all. Instead, it may be that they are experience normal, inner speech, but the generation of the predictive efferent copy is malfunctioning. Without an efferent copy, motor commands are judged as alien (i.e. one does not feel like they caused the action). This could also explain why an open mouth stops the experience of alien voices: When the patient opens their mouth, the inner speech motor movements are not planned in the first place.
suggested that talking to yourself can be used to avoid silence
. According to him, our ancestors, like many other social animals, used contact calls
to maintain constant contact with the members of the group, and a signal of danger was communicated through becoming silent and freezing. Because of our evolutionary history, prolonged silence is perceived as a sign of danger and triggers a feeling of uneasiness and fear. According to Jordania, talking to yourself is only one of the ways to fill in prolonged gaps of silence in humans. Other ways of filling in prolonged silence are humming, whistling
, finger drumming, or having TV, radio or music on all the time.
, presents several techniques in her book Choke, that could offer help to anyone facing a challenging situation and struggling with mental chatter. It has been widely accepted that speaking in front of a crowd causes people considerable stress. Dr. Beilock suggests that practicing in front of family or friends DOES NOT help overcome this fear. She states that these so-called "friendly faces" can cause the person to become more self-conscious which can lead to the possibility of further choking
. The elevated motivation to please parents or friends is what she theorizes causes brain functions to freeze. Since self talk is a form of self regulation, parents or instructors could use this technique to help focus a young student's inner dialog towards a process goal instead of an outcome based goal. When applied in an educational psychology
classroom scenario, teachers can instruct students to focus on presentation material ignoring consequences, expectations, and/or the attempt to impress instructors or classmates.
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
use or thought
Thought
"Thought" generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual's subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas. Similar concepts include cognition, sentience, consciousness, and imagination...
internal to the communicator. It can be useful to envision intrapersonal communication occurring in the mind of the individual in a model which contains a sender, receiver, and feedback loop.
Definitions
Although successful communication is generally defined as being between two or more individuals, issues concerning the useful nature of intrapersonal communication made some argue that this definition is too narrow.In Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry, Jurgen Ruesch
Jurgen Ruesch
-Life:Ruesch was born in Naples, Italy, to Swiss parents. He studied at the University of Zurich, and moved to San Francisco in 1943 to head a project at the newly opened Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute of the University of California, San Francisco...
and Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
argue that intrapersonal communication is indeed a special case of interpersonal communication
Interpersonal communication
Interpersonal communication is usually defined by communication scholars in numerous ways, usually describing participants who are dependent upon one another. It...
, as "dialogue is the foundation for all discourse."
Intrapersonal communication can encompass:
- Day-dreamingDaydreamA daydream is a visionary fantasy, especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions, imagined as coming to pass, and experienced while awake. There are many types of daydreams, and there is no consistent definition amongst psychologists. The general public also uses the term for a...
- Nocturnal dreamDreamDreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
ing, including and especially lucid dreamingLucid dreamingA lucid dream is a dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming. The term was coined by the Dutch psychiatrist and writer Frederik van Eeden . In a lucid dream, the dreamer can actively participate in and manipulate imaginary experiences in the dream environment. Lucid dreams can seem real and... - Speaking aloud (talking to oneself), reading aloud, repeating what one hears; the additional activities of speaking and hearingHearing (sense)Hearing is the ability to perceive sound by detecting vibrations through an organ such as the ear. It is one of the traditional five senses...
(in the third case of hearing again) what one thinksThought"Thought" generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual's subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas. Similar concepts include cognition, sentience, consciousness, and imagination...
, reads or hears may increase concentration and retention. This is considered normal, and the extent to which it occurs varies from person to person. The time when there should be concern is when talking to oneself occurs outside of socially acceptable situations. - Internal monologueInternal monologueInternal monologue, also known as inner voice, internal speech, or verbal stream of consciousness is thinking in words. It also refers to the semi-constant internal monologue one has with oneself at a conscious or semi-conscious level....
, the semi-constant internal monologue one has with oneself at a conscious or semi-conscious level. - WritingWritingWriting is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
(by hand, or with a word processorWord processorA word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
, etc.) one's thoughts or observations: the additional activities, on top of thinking, of writing and reading back may again increase self-understanding ("How do I know what I mean until I see what I say?") and concentration. It aids ordering one's thoughts; in addition it produces a record that can be used later again. Copying text to aid memorizing also falls in this category.- Writing need not be limited to words in a natural or even formal language. Doodling also falls into this category. Children may be communicating intrapersonally when they doodle and adults sometimes argue that they do.
- Making gestures while thinking: the additional activity, on top of thinking, of body motions, may again increase concentration, assist in problem solving, and assist memory.
- Again, routinely observed in children, the equivalent of doodling without writing. Everyday images are transformed by gestures that form a new lens through which to view the images.
- Sense-making (see Karl WeickKarl WeickKarl E. Weick is an American organizational theorist who is noted for introducing the notions of "loose coupling", "mindfulness", and "sensemaking" into organizational studies. He is the Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan...
) e.g. interpreting maps, texts, signSign (linguistics)There are many models of the linguistic sign . A classic model is the one by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. According to him, language is made up of signs and every sign has two sides : the signifier , the "shape" of a word, its phonic component, i.e...
s, and symbols - Interpreting non-verbal communication (see Albert MehrabianAlbert MehrabianAlbert Mehrabian , has become known best by his publications on the relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages...
) e.g. gestures, eye contact - Communication between body parts; e.g. "My stomach is telling me it's time for lunch."
Mechanisms
Our ability to talk to ourself and think in words is a major part of the human experience of consciousness. From a young age, individuals are encouraged by society to introspect carefully, but also to communicate the results of that introspection.Simon Jones and Charles Fernyhough cite research suggesting that our ability to talk to ourselves is very similar to regular speech. This theory originates with the developmental psychologist Lev VygotskyLev Vygotsky
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was a Soviet psychologist, the founder of cultural-historical psychology, and the leader of the Vygotsky Circle.-Biography:...
, who observed that children will often narrate their actions out loud before eventually replacing the habit with the adult equivalent: sub-vocal articulation. During sub-vocal articulation, no sound is made but the mouth still moves. Eventually, adults may learn to inhibit their mouth movements, although they still experience the words as "inner speech".
Jones and Fernyhough cite other evidence for this hypothesis that inner speech is essentially like any other action. They mention that schizophrenics suffering auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) need only open their mouths in order to disrupt the voices in their heads. To try and explain more about how inner speech works, but also what goes wrong with AVH patients, Jones and Fernyhough adapt what is known as the "forward model" of motor control, which uses the idea of "efferent copies".
In a forward model of motor control, the mind generates movement unconsciously. While information is sent to the necessary body parts, the mind basically faxes a copy of that same information to other areas of the brain. This "efferent" copy could then be used to make predictions about upcoming movements. If the actual sensations match predictions, we experience the feeling of agency. If there is a mismatch between the body and its predicted position, perhaps due to obstructions or other cognitive disruption, no feeling of agency occurs.
Jones and Fernyhough believe that the forward model might explain AVH and inner speech. Perhaps, if inner speech is a normal action, then the malfunction in schizophrenic patients is not the fact that actions (i.e. voices) are occurring at all. Instead, it may be that they are experience normal, inner speech, but the generation of the predictive efferent copy is malfunctioning. Without an efferent copy, motor commands are judged as alien (i.e. one does not feel like they caused the action). This could also explain why an open mouth stops the experience of alien voices: When the patient opens their mouth, the inner speech motor movements are not planned in the first place.
Evolved to avoid silence
Joseph JordaniaJoseph Jordania
Joseph Jordania is an Australian-Georgian ethnomusicologist and evolutionary musicologist. In some early publications his name was spelled as Zhordania...
suggested that talking to yourself can be used to avoid silence
Silence
Silence is the relative or total lack of audible sound. By analogy, the word silence may also refer to any absence of communication, even in media other than speech....
. According to him, our ancestors, like many other social animals, used contact calls
Contact calls
Seemingly haphazard sounds made by many social animals are known as contact calls. Contact calls are very different from many other types of calls , as contact calls are not a specific signal, designed to communicate some specific information...
to maintain constant contact with the members of the group, and a signal of danger was communicated through becoming silent and freezing. Because of our evolutionary history, prolonged silence is perceived as a sign of danger and triggers a feeling of uneasiness and fear. According to Jordania, talking to yourself is only one of the ways to fill in prolonged gaps of silence in humans. Other ways of filling in prolonged silence are humming, whistling
Whistling
Human whistling is the production of sound by means of carefully controlling a stream of air flowing through a small hole. Whistling can be achieved by creating a small opening with one's lips and then blowing or sucking air through the hole...
, finger drumming, or having TV, radio or music on all the time.
Criticism of the concept
In 1992, a chapter in Communication Yearbook #15, argued that "intrapersonal communication" is a flawed concept. The chapter first itemized the various definitions. Intrapersonal communication, it appears, arises from a series of logical and linguistic improprieties. The descriptor itself, 'intrapersonal communication' is ambiguous: many definitions appear to be circular since they borrow, apply and thereby distort conceptual features (e.g., sender, receiver, message, dialogue) drawn from normal inter-person communication; unknown entities or person-parts allegedly conduct the 'intrapersonal' exchange; in many cases, a very private language is posited which, upon analysis, turns out to be totally inaccessible and ultimately indefensible. In general, intrapersonal communication appears to arise from the tendency to interpret the inner mental processes that precede and accompany our communicative behaviors as if they too were yet another kind of communication process. The overall point is that this reconstruction of our inner mental processes in the language and idioms of everyday public conversation is highly questionable, tenuous at best.Other Viewpoints
Dr. Sian Beilock , cognitive psychology professor at the University of ChicagoUniversity of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, presents several techniques in her book Choke, that could offer help to anyone facing a challenging situation and struggling with mental chatter. It has been widely accepted that speaking in front of a crowd causes people considerable stress. Dr. Beilock suggests that practicing in front of family or friends DOES NOT help overcome this fear. She states that these so-called "friendly faces" can cause the person to become more self-conscious which can lead to the possibility of further choking
Panic attack
Panic attacks are periods of intense fear or apprehension that are of sudden onset and of relatively brief duration. Panic attacks usually begin abruptly, reach a peak within 10 minutes, and subside over the next several hours...
. The elevated motivation to please parents or friends is what she theorizes causes brain functions to freeze. Since self talk is a form of self regulation, parents or instructors could use this technique to help focus a young student's inner dialog towards a process goal instead of an outcome based goal. When applied in an educational psychology
Educational psychology
Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing...
classroom scenario, teachers can instruct students to focus on presentation material ignoring consequences, expectations, and/or the attempt to impress instructors or classmates.
See also
- AutosuggestionAutosuggestionAutosuggestion is a psychological technique that was developed by apothecary Émile Coué from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.-Origins:...
- Contact callsContact callsSeemingly haphazard sounds made by many social animals are known as contact calls. Contact calls are very different from many other types of calls , as contact calls are not a specific signal, designed to communicate some specific information...
- DreamDreamDreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
- Humming
- Internal monologueInternal monologueInternal monologue, also known as inner voice, internal speech, or verbal stream of consciousness is thinking in words. It also refers to the semi-constant internal monologue one has with oneself at a conscious or semi-conscious level....
- Knowledge visualization
- Lucid dreamingLucid dreamingA lucid dream is a dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming. The term was coined by the Dutch psychiatrist and writer Frederik van Eeden . In a lucid dream, the dreamer can actively participate in and manipulate imaginary experiences in the dream environment. Lucid dreams can seem real and...
- SemioticsSemioticsSemiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
- Stream of consciousnessStream of consciousness (psychology)Stream of consciousness refers to the flow of thoughts in the conscious mind. The full range of thoughts that one can be aware of can form the content of this stream, not just verbal thoughts...
- SubvocalizationSubvocalizationSubvocalization, or silent speech, is defined as the internal speech made when reading a word, thus allowing the reader to imagine the sound of the word as it is read. This is a natural process when reading and helps to reduce cognitive load, and it helps the mind to access meanings to enable it to...
- Friedemann Schulz von ThunFriedemann Schulz von ThunFriedemann Schulz von Thun is a German psychologist and expert for interpersonal communication and intrapersonal communication. Schulz von Thun worked as a professor of psychology at the University of Hamburg until his retirement on 30 Sep. 2009...
- WhistlingWhistlingHuman whistling is the production of sound by means of carefully controlling a stream of air flowing through a small hole. Whistling can be achieved by creating a small opening with one's lips and then blowing or sucking air through the hole...