Researchers Explain Why It’s Healthy When People Talk To Themselves

Medical ConditionsDecember 20, 2017

When some people talk to themselves, other people tend to judge right away as if those people are crazy. Well technically, that’s not the case all the time, because whether you admit it or not, you tend to talk to your inner self almost every single day. Especially whenever you’re making decisions, whether it is about something that would make a huge impact of your life or something that you would have for lunch. Or better yet when you talk to yourself whenever you regret doing something or more like when you suddenly remember something that you’re supposed to get or to do.

So there is absolutely nothing wrong with conversing with yourself as if you’re actually talking to someone else. Still doesn’t make sense, keep reading to find out more.

INNER VOICE CONVERSATIONS WITH ONESELF

In a recent study, it was discovered that whenever a person would have a silent conversation with themselves, it would be literally the same as if that person is also talking to someone else, this is all based on the scans of 42 people who underwent an electroencephalography or most commonly known as EEG. The researchers basically studied all the effects of the copy of the directions from the brain that is being sent to the person’s mouth and vocal cords when they are saying something, and this is known as the efference copy. This is also when the brain tells the person want to say and it is also used to be able to identify other voices. According to researchers, this could be compared to whenever a person would try to tickle themselves, and no one would be able to do that since it is already expected.

When it comes to unfamiliar and unexpected voices and sounds, the deference copy’s effect wouldn’t exactly impact the sound of the person’s voice. And this research found that even if you were able to hear your own voices the efference copy still works. This study’s lead researcher Thomas Whitford of her University of New South Wales in Sydney said that the brain’s response to the inner voice actually gives less mental resources compared to the unexpected phenomenon because the efference copy gets dampened. How they actually tested this all out is they made volunteers record their own voices and play it but imaging either something different or something the same, the brain will then have a much stronger as well as active response became the efference copy is not present.

INNER SPEECH PHENOMENON

Ever since during the 1930s, inner speech has been one of the most studied researches by psychologists, in fact, Alec Vygotaky of Russia said that inner speech actually comes from the internalization of the voice speech. Because the inner speech occurs when there is a muscular movement of the larynx and it can be detected by electromyography. Technically for several years, experts have been convinced that inner speech as well as talking actually has the same brain mechanism, however, the inner speech was discovered to have a way more complicated and multifaceted phenomenon compared to the vocal speech.

NEUROSCIENTISTS TALKS ABOUT HEARING VOICES

Most people think that auditory verbal hallucinations or simply hearing voices is something that a mentally impaired person would do. However, it is actually just a disoriented way of inner speech. According to neuroscientists, they have actually some pieces of evidence wherein they actually scanned the brains of those who claimed that they are indeed hearing voices. They have discovered that these people’s brains have their inner speech as well as their auditory hallucinations active which is why they claim to be hearing voices.

With the use of the functional magnetic resonance imaging or the fMRI, researchers from Finland actually tried to study the difference between what exactly is going on in the brain when a person is auditory verbal hallucinating and when talking to the inner voice. Turns out that, there is indeed a big difference between the two, which is why it is normal to have a silent conversation with yourself and to actually hear voices and talk to that specific voice. The difference is said to be the level of activation in the cortical region of the brain that is known to be the supplementary motor area, which is the part that controls the movement. To be able to understand all of this is essential especially if we want to help people address their distress if ever they encounter this phenomenon.