Is it actually such a big advantage if you can think 30 times faster than somebody else, as I thought initially?
Depends. I would expect that the difference is not only in speed, but also in precision, or maybe suitability for different kinds of problems.
It seems to me that for me “inner dialogue” works better for figuring out complicated stuff or coming to unusual conclusions, “visualization” works for geometrical and mechanical problems, “feeling” for choosing between clearly given options, and there is also something in between that I use for medium-difficulty situations.
I’ve already read “Universal experiences” (though thanks for 2), people are different, yeah, but there should be something central. Most people don’t have synethesia, don’t like math, but respect existing status hierarchies, noticebly want to be not alone etc. And subvocalization while reading is the most usual, so I suspect it to be the most usual while thinking too.
Depends. I would expect that the difference is not only in speed, but also in precision, or maybe suitability for different kinds of problems.
That was what I thought initially when I subvocalized all initial flashes of idea. But now my direct observations are showing me that was I was just wrong. Actually, I had evidence that I was wrong, I just didn’t properly process it: when you are opening your eyes in the room, you are immediately seeing it all, the visual cortex recognizes dozens of objects with hundreds of details at one moment, parallelly as the brain is. It’s not brain limit to use words sequentially, it’s mouth limit (or hands for sign language).
When you are imagining a scene like “blond haired woman in a red dress was going to the shop by a street with trees” you don’t need to think about each element sequentially, you can just see it as a whole, including action. Which is really different from how you will read a sentence describing it.
Audial thinking is faster than visual, but not that much, you can say something like 24 phonemes in one second and recognize in speech 2-3 times more than that − 48-72 per second. And you need ~100ms to recognize an object visually (~250 to react), so it’s 4-10 per second. But it’s only a little difference, 6 or 7.2 times between limits.
While sentences contain 10-30 words and words are ~4-8 letters each, 40-240 for sequential audial processing, 0.5-10s vs 0.1s for visual recognition.
“feeling” for choosing between clearly given options
And I suspect that we put different meanings into “conceptual thinking”. I am not talking emotions feelings, and not about intuitive leaning to some option, and not even about semantic thinking. It’s exactly conceptual thinking. I don’t know, maybe… When you already said a sentence, can you at least sometimes feel it’s meaning as a one concept same way as you can feel as one concept meaning of a word even if it’s something not perceptual like “cat”, but complicated abstract definition like “freezing into a solid form without creating a crystal structure”? I just found out that with some introspection you can turn initial flash directly into that, without a need to subvocalize distinct words. and very fast in comparison with a sentence, approximately a time of saying a word.
Though sometimes I can’t convert it into a conceptual feeling of sentence that fast, because it’s somewhat difficult to organize it semantically. But I am not sure it’s even worse for thinking, not for speech. Because then I still can unfold conceptual sense of it, it just becomes not projected into specific words. which maybe good, because I can say either “probabilistic correlation” or “logically binding” or “timeless agreement”, but as non word projected concept I can just think about a central object between all of them, without picking only one side.
Though after time passed I indeed see some unobvious flaws. Like that subvocalizing words with intonation enhances your emotions. Though… Can’t you just subvocalize a song while thinking conceptually?
Also when you stuck in a dialogue you can just start babbling, but conceptually it’s much harder. Though it’s also maybe easily done non sequentially (non audibly) by imagining words printed shapes visually.
And also I see some vague beginning of understanding how different forces shape your thinking depending on modality. Like there are limits how slow you can talk and after which sentence should go next sentence, while visual (or conceptual) thinker can just not generate new thought after ending previous, and therefore be even worse in general, while being better in fast bursts.
Or that you can start feel that you have more time and therefore use it with more slack.
Or that audial thinkers can actually have whole lot of background faster non auditory processing, so it will not be 1 vs 10-30, but more like 1+5 vs 10-30. So it will be still good, but not that good.
Though I think that maybe one of biggest advances may be not even speed, but the fact that after thinking thought you can save it in your imagination space, and then put following thought next to it etc. And so see whole thought chains, which I don’t see how you can do audibly at all.
And subvocalization while reading is the most usual, so I suspect it to be the most usual while thinking too.
LOL, I wanted to write a comment disagreeing with you… and then I noticed that I am subvocalizing as I am writing the comment.
subvocalizing words with intonation enhances your emotions.
Great observation!
It seems that as subvocalization is “imagined speech”, subvocalization with intonation is “imagined role-playing”. And there is a visual thing that is “imagined object manipulation”.
Maybe there is more to this analogy, and some problems with speech could have analogical problems with thinking? Something like “imagined word salad” or “imagined unintelligible babbling”...
People are different. Source: 1, 2, 3.
Depends. I would expect that the difference is not only in speed, but also in precision, or maybe suitability for different kinds of problems.
It seems to me that for me “inner dialogue” works better for figuring out complicated stuff or coming to unusual conclusions, “visualization” works for geometrical and mechanical problems, “feeling” for choosing between clearly given options, and there is also something in between that I use for medium-difficulty situations.
I’ve already read “Universal experiences” (though thanks for 2), people are different, yeah, but there should be something central. Most people don’t have synethesia, don’t like math, but respect existing status hierarchies, noticebly want to be not alone etc. And subvocalization while reading is the most usual, so I suspect it to be the most usual while thinking too.
That was what I thought initially when I subvocalized all initial flashes of idea. But now my direct observations are showing me that was I was just wrong. Actually, I had evidence that I was wrong, I just didn’t properly process it: when you are opening your eyes in the room, you are immediately seeing it all, the visual cortex recognizes dozens of objects with hundreds of details at one moment, parallelly as the brain is. It’s not brain limit to use words sequentially, it’s mouth limit (or hands for sign language).
When you are imagining a scene like “blond haired woman in a red dress was going to the shop by a street with trees” you don’t need to think about each element sequentially, you can just see it as a whole, including action. Which is really different from how you will read a sentence describing it.
Audial thinking is faster than visual, but not that much, you can say something like 24 phonemes in one second and recognize in speech 2-3 times more than that − 48-72 per second. And you need ~100ms to recognize an object visually (~250 to react), so it’s 4-10 per second. But it’s only a little difference, 6 or 7.2 times between limits.
While sentences contain 10-30 words and words are ~4-8 letters each, 40-240 for sequential audial processing, 0.5-10s vs 0.1s for visual recognition.
And I suspect that we put different meanings into “conceptual thinking”. I am not talking emotions feelings, and not about intuitive leaning to some option, and not even about semantic thinking. It’s exactly conceptual thinking. I don’t know, maybe… When you already said a sentence, can you at least sometimes feel it’s meaning as a one concept same way as you can feel as one concept meaning of a word even if it’s something not perceptual like “cat”, but complicated abstract definition like “freezing into a solid form without creating a crystal structure”? I just found out that with some introspection you can turn initial flash directly into that, without a need to subvocalize distinct words. and very fast in comparison with a sentence, approximately a time of saying a word.
Though sometimes I can’t convert it into a conceptual feeling of sentence that fast, because it’s somewhat difficult to organize it semantically. But I am not sure it’s even worse for thinking, not for speech. Because then I still can unfold conceptual sense of it, it just becomes not projected into specific words. which maybe good, because I can say either “probabilistic correlation” or “logically binding” or “timeless agreement”, but as non word projected concept I can just think about a central object between all of them, without picking only one side.
Though after time passed I indeed see some unobvious flaws. Like that subvocalizing words with intonation enhances your emotions. Though… Can’t you just subvocalize a song while thinking conceptually?
Also when you stuck in a dialogue you can just start babbling, but conceptually it’s much harder. Though it’s also maybe easily done non sequentially (non audibly) by imagining words printed shapes visually.
And also I see some vague beginning of understanding how different forces shape your thinking depending on modality. Like there are limits how slow you can talk and after which sentence should go next sentence, while visual (or conceptual) thinker can just not generate new thought after ending previous, and therefore be even worse in general, while being better in fast bursts.
Or that you can start feel that you have more time and therefore use it with more slack.
Or that audial thinkers can actually have whole lot of background faster non auditory processing, so it will not be 1 vs 10-30, but more like 1+5 vs 10-30. So it will be still good, but not that good.
Though I think that maybe one of biggest advances may be not even speed, but the fact that after thinking thought you can save it in your imagination space, and then put following thought next to it etc. And so see whole thought chains, which I don’t see how you can do audibly at all.
LOL, I wanted to write a comment disagreeing with you… and then I noticed that I am subvocalizing as I am writing the comment.
Great observation!
It seems that as subvocalization is “imagined speech”, subvocalization with intonation is “imagined role-playing”. And there is a visual thing that is “imagined object manipulation”.
Maybe there is more to this analogy, and some problems with speech could have analogical problems with thinking? Something like “imagined word salad” or “imagined unintelligible babbling”...