Of course, happy to discuss. You have me stumped though, I actually can't articulate how I work. If what I'm doing requires extreme care, such as pushing configuration updates to production, I will mentally say out loud what I'm planning to do (probably something similar to [0]), but calling that voice is a conscious effort. Normally I'll follow a vague "feeling" of what needs to happen. I think my mind works directly with abstract concepts or mental representations of what I'm focusing on.
> "suppose I do this here, and.."
Sure, I will follow the same pattern, but the drive to fiddle with something bubbles up from some abstract place. Words don't even come into play.
Do you also subvocalize when reading text?
This topic is a fickle beast. The only baseline I have is my own cognition -- I can't say "yeah it's like what you're doing only..." -- I am fundamentally unable to experience your way of thinking. We are blobs of fat oxymoronically trying to explain our subjective experience in an objective way through our 2nd languages (lossy doesn't even beign to describe it). It's absurd but oh so fascinating.
> If what I'm doing requires extreme care, such as pushing configuration updates to production, I will mentally say out loud what I'm planning to do (probably something similar to [0]), but calling that voice is a conscious effort.
Yes, mentally say out loud is what I'm talking about. And sometimes it's a conscious effort as well, definitely. But it doesn't require much effort from my part. Well, it requires so little effort, that sometimes I catch my mind talking to itself, without the other part really listening. So, sometimes it is not a conscious effort. My reasoning is that maybe some of the thoughts seem to trigger some part of the brain that is used for vocabulary, and they express themselves "vocally" (but without any sound)..
> Do you also subvocalize when reading text?
When reading text, and now by replying to you. English is not my native language, so I must "vocalize" the words internally, and then write them as they "sound" in my brain. I've been doing this for such a long time that is feels quite natural to me. And when I'm less rusty (specially when talking), I tend to skip the "inner" voice and project directly to the "outer" voice. But it only happens when I'm having lots of conversations in English. I haven't been writing or talking in EN too much lately, so I have to use my inner voice as intermediate step. As for reading, most of the time I read using my "inner" voice, both for English as for Portuguese (which is my native language).
You go to a wall and there is a picture hanging on the wall. You like the picture. Can you "say" in your head without using your voice/mouth "I like this picture"?
If you have to use your voice, can you mimic the tongue movement without moving your mouth and "hear" the words without making a sound?
I can conjure up a voice in my head and make it say anything I want, such as "I like this picture", but it's a contrived and unnatural thing for me to do. It takes effort and "takes over" my whole brain. If a picture on the wall catches my eye, I will just enjoy it. Maybe that's why I struggle to answer "oh, what do you like about this picture?", because nothing about my experience had any relation to words at all.
I normally don't talk very much, maybe that's why? Maybe my though process is further removed from language than that of most other people?
For me it's like my head has a large cluster of art that I've seen, all organized. It is the "memory palace" basically, if you've heard of that approach to memorizing things. Except my memory palace is very, very large, and it has an area for art that I've seen.
If I appreciate a piece of art then it goes into my memory palace collection in a room that groups it together with other similar pieces of art that I had a similar appreciation for. As I appreciate the piece of art my memory palace branches out from there in many directions. I'm recalling other similar pieces of art (how does this art rank compared to other pieces I've appreciated). I'm recalling other pieces of art by the same artist (how did this art compare to their other works). I'm recalling similar artists of the time period (how did this work compare to art by contemporary artists). I'm imagining the techniques that were used to make the art, whether dramatic and physical (splashes of paint in a modern art piece) or precise and delicate (such as the fine brush strokes). This is the process of appreciation I feel.
Basically, the "I like this picture" is a very visual experience for me, not a vocal experience at all. If I did not like the picture then I just look at it, have an internal feeling of "meh" or "boredom" and do not put any effort into memorization or related recall and connectivity of the memory.
> "suppose I do this here, and.."
Sure, I will follow the same pattern, but the drive to fiddle with something bubbles up from some abstract place. Words don't even come into play.
Do you also subvocalize when reading text?
This topic is a fickle beast. The only baseline I have is my own cognition -- I can't say "yeah it's like what you're doing only..." -- I am fundamentally unable to experience your way of thinking. We are blobs of fat oxymoronically trying to explain our subjective experience in an objective way through our 2nd languages (lossy doesn't even beign to describe it). It's absurd but oh so fascinating.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling