The varieties of inner speech: links between quality of inner speech and psychopathological variables in a sample of young adults.

By Simon McCarthy-Jones, Charles Fernyhough. 2011

213 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A resurgence of interest in inner speech as a core feature of human experience has not yet coincided with methodological progress in the empirical study of the phenomenon. The present article reports the development and psychometric validation of a novel instrument, the Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire (VISQ), designed to assess the phenomenological properties of inner speech along dimensions of dialogicality, condensed/expanded quality, evaluative/motivational nature, and the extent to which inner speech incorporates other people's voices. In response to findings that some forms of psychopathology may relate to inner speech, anxiety, depression, and proneness to auditory and visual hallucinations were also assessed. Anxiety, but not depression, was found to be uniquely positively related to both evaluative/motivational inner speech and the presence of other voices in inner speech. Only dialogic inner speech predicted auditory hallucination-proneness, with no inner speech variables predicting levels of visual hallucinations/disturbances. Directions for future research are discussed.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology, Cognitive Science & Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

Inner Speech: Development, Cognitive Functions, Phenomenology, and Neurobiology (2015, background): “As noted in How do Adults Experience Inner Speech?, more evaluative forms of inner speech correlate with higher levels of nonclinical trait anxiety in university students (McCarthy-Jones & Fernyhough, 2011).”
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Auditory Verbal Hallucinations as Atypical Inner Speech Monitoring, and the Potential of Neurostimulation as a Treatment Option (unknown): “…could be evoked by, for example, asking participants to imagine a conversation , evaluate behaviour, or plan a speech for a future event – these have all been suggested as important functions of inner speech (McCarthy-Jones and Fernyhough, 2011), and so should be more accurate approximations.”
Toward a phenomenology of inner speaking. (2013, unknown): “Recent exceptions include Ihde (2007), a phenomenologist with a chapter titled ‘‘Inner Speech,’’ and McCarthy-Jones and Fernyhough (2011), who state that their ‘‘Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire (VISQ) [is] designed to assess the phenomenological properties of inner speech’’ (McCarthy-Jones…”
More than words? Hypomanic personality traits, visual imagery and verbal thought in young adults. (2012, result): “…and verbal thought as non-perceptual breaks down, with inner speech being literally shot through with other people’s voices (Fernyhough, 2004; McCarthy-Jones & Fernyhough, 2011), the validity of a distinction between mental imagery and verbal thought is supported by studies showing that…”
The brain’s conversation with itself: neural substrates of dialogic inner speech (2015, methodology): “Scores on the Dialogic Inner Speech subscale of the VISQ were associated with a cluster in the same area of right MTG (39, 58, 15; t¼ 6.57, cluster size¼ 10), along with two areas of the right precuneus ((i) 15, 67, 26; t¼ 4.89, cluster size¼ 11; (ii) 15, 49, 31; t¼ 4.66, cluster size¼ 13; all P< 0.”
Shot through with voices: Dissociation mediates the relationship between varieties of inner speech and auditory hallucination proneness (2014, methodology): “Consistent with prior findings (McCarthy-Jones & Fernyhough, 2011), the four VISQ subscales showed good reliability and specific relationships with proneness to auditory hallucinations; dialogic and evaluative characteristics of inner speech and the presence of other voices in inner speech…”