Subvocalization has several draw backs. One is that it is very bad at multitasking (eg. try reading this comment while counting).

It turns out that when you are subvocalizing, you send tiny impulses to your throat as though you are speaking, just not strong enough to do so. So it is possible to eavesdrop on subvocalization (NASA has experimented with this -- see wiki article).

Some people naturally don't subvocalize because of learning disabilities; they usually have trouble writing and speaking because they have to translate their thoughts into English.

Of course the idea that you are thinking in a language is rather terrifying. Consider how it is moulding your thoughts. The idea that language effects your thoughts is called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. (Some people have tried to make better languages to think in, see lojban.)

I find it interesting to note that when I program, I think, at least partially, in that language -- I've even noticed that I attach sounds to some operators in C. I also notice that the way I think varies depending on the area of math I'm working in: when I am doing algebra or calculus, it's a combination of subvocalized math and visualisation of formulas, whereas complex analysis is often almost entirely visual and set theoretic topology often is neither subvocalized or visualised.

/rant

If Sapir-Whorf holds true then we should see those using a specific language excelling in specific areas shouldn't we? Could this perhaps account for some of the stereotypical characteristics we ascribe to different nationalities.

And oh yes, we all think in formulas when doing mathematics. I have problem vocalizing formulas with Greek letters to others but I can quickly write them down. I think it's because Greek letters were never officially taught in China.

This is horrible obvious when I try to work with numbers. I've never worked with math higher than two digits in spoken language. In order for me to do any more complex math I first need to translate the spoken numbers into written form. Translating between written and spoken forms is painful for me. It can take me two or three seconds per character to comprehend spelling, phone numbers, or math. Writing down a phone number is almost impossible unless one of the parts is one I have memorize. 414, 920, and 644 are numbers I can instantly convert between their written or spoken forms because they are parts of numbers I've memorized. It is frustrating for me because no one I've encountered seems to have this issue and therefore I'm a special kind of moron for not being able to keep up.

The only reason this hasn't caused me horrible problems in life is I'm able to memorize enough to compensate.

> And our brain is faster and more optimized at processing mass volume visual stuff(especially pattern recognition), does anyone else think in pictures?

I'm pretty sure I think at one level of abstract above imagery most of the time. I'm currently reading through Lord of the Rings and I'm finding myself not thinking in imagery at all but simply absorbing information and forming mental maps of the terrain instead of experiencing it visually. Some of it is definitely Tolken's writing style, it readily lends itself to abstraction in my mind.

When reading Lord of the Rings, I force myself to experience it at a lower level of abstraction. At a lower abstraction my brain has to work much harder to form original imagery (not just dropping in stuff from the movies) and my reading drops to a fifth of my normal speed. The experience is much richer and well worth it.

I think that you might have some degree of dyslexia and other co-morbidities. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia#Comorbidities).

Have you ever gotten it checked? An accurate diagnosis can go a long way in formulating a response and finding a solution to this.

I can't even begin to imagine how bad it must be for you, but I do know that if you work at it with some professional help then it will improve in subtle ways. Miracles won't happen due to age, but you will be the richer for it.

Take care.

I don't know if I was clear enough. I only have difficultly converting between spoken and written language. My reading and math skills are fine. I can keep a running total of groceries in my head during a trip to the store.

I do have trouble remembering proper spelling but that's what spell checking for. (OSX 10.6 added automatic spelling correction to TextEdit. I love it!)

Sure can't ;)

So yes, even as a SO, I understand. And judging from your writing style and comprehension, you're not stupid... Just different.

There's a few other things you'd be good at, but those would be best to take private.

The truth is that we all think in an undefinable mental language and our common language is an abstraction of that layer. I remember this interesting experiment that I read about in Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct.

Someone decided to test if we truly think in language or not. So they took a letter and rotated it. They then asked the subject if it was a mirror image of the original or the original itself. Interestingly they found that the further they rotated the longer it took for people to decode it. Now if people though in terms of language then the opposite would have been true. 180º would have been the easiest since it was just a matter of making the thing go up to the to and drag the feet of the letter down to the ground, but it took longer than 45º. Interesting. (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_rotation)

Something quirky about me is that I am a bit dyslexic so it might have forced me to be more aware of this process than most people. Just like what your linguistic environment did to you.

Does anyone else here share my experience?

That's a very big assertion without substantial experimental backing - care to provide some?

Even just defining "think" sounds hard to me.

Well, to 'think' in the OP's article context means to think about. Think about fish, it swims, think about cars, it moves. The replies are more about 'information processing' and 'innovative reasoning'. So people often can not find the correct word for an abstract idea. The human brain stores a huge namespace of world view and knowledge, sometimes the natural languages are not enough to decode and describe its complexity.

If I look at the bolts sitting on my table, I don't literally think in my mind 'oh look those are bolts'. I recognize them for what they are, my brain does some processing, and at the same time as my mind is about to wander off thinking about the project I have them for, it loads the word 'bolts' into fast-access memory for immediate access.

That's why I get so hung up if I see or discuss something I can't remember the word for. I go into a waiting-for-IO state where I can't precache the right word :)

I've a terrible memory and it's been getting worse, sometimes I'll use a temporary variable until the relevant part of my brain has recalled the proper term - this can be for abstract concepts, names or other nouns. Kinda like when one uses the term "whatsit" or "thing-a-me-bob" in physical speech.

I find that words come to me sometimes days later, especially when it's a given name.

My grandfather had alzeimer's and mother is convinced she is going that way, I'm only in my 30s though - it is a bit worrying but also fascinating to consider the internal machinations.

I often solve problems when thinking about something else - a song, a radio program. THen when I go back to the problem, the solution is clear. Where did that "Thinking" occur? Not in my language buffer, it was fully occupied. In fact in might have been getting the language buffer "out of the loop" that allowed the thinking to occur.

When debugging code, I absolutely DO NOT have an internal dialog going on. I'm paging through code, following definitions, looking at code blocks as a whole, putting the code into some mental space that is not words, then voila! the wrong piece shows up in my mind and I have it.

Language is over-rated.

But what's the definition of thinking?

For me there are two ways of "thinking", the conscious one, in which I'm talking to myself and the unconscious, intuitive one, in which I don't talk to myself, but get some kind of "enlightenment", just see or understand something without a conscious thought.

The unconscious thinking works for me on all stuff I'm good at, stuff I learned und exercised a lot, so in a way the conscious thinking has been done before, created some kind of neural connection, and know this connection is activated without my assistance.

For me it's also the case that my logic sometimes works in a unconscious way, that I just get something, but it's the question how much this unconscious logic is assisted by former training.

A quite long time I only used the unconscious thinking. As long I advanced, there has been no need for an other way of thinking. But I got at a barrier, where my unconscious thinking couldn't go further.

I think, that If you're confronted with something completely new and very hard, then the unconscious thinking can go some way, but at some point it won't get further. You need then to change to the conscious thinking, create the necessary neural connections, and If that's done, then you're able to think again in an unconscious way.

I think, that you can limit yourself, if you're only used to one way of thinking

Often I'm debbuging in the same way as you. But sometimes it's very inefficient, when I'm stumble around without a direction.

Sometimes it's way more efficient to step back, get the bigger picture, ask yourself some questions, build assumptions and verify them.

Sometimes during the "conscious" debugging, when I'm talking to myself I'm getting an "enlightenment", and the bug is solved.

E.g. play a kids match game, where you turn up pairs of cards looking for a match. Two of spades, Three of hearts - no match. Turn them back over, try again.

But really, you aren't saying those things in your head - you might but you don't have to. You just look at the cards, and if they don't match you turn them back down. Try another pair - five of diamonds, two of spades - hey! that matches the 1st two of spades I saw!

The whole time you are consciously looking for a match, and unless you're explaining the game to somebody, your language processor can remain idle.

That's right. My naming of the thinking "styles" has been suboptimal.

I think, that the kids game is just easy enough, that your brain can get the rules and playing it without contorted maneuvers.

This isn't unconscious, you're aware of everything, but in a way you just see it, without the need understanding. In a way you're brain understands for you, you don't see the needed steps to get to the understanding.

But when something is a lot harder, than your brain can't just understand all at once, then you need to do the steps for "yourself", by talking to you, by explaining it to you, or by reading an explanation, and this explanation is "written" in your brain, so that the next time the brain can do the steps for itself.

When learning from a textbook, there are those that need pictures to understand explanations. There are those that need the explanation, pictures are useless to them. I don't think they are necessarily thinking any differently, just entering the knowledge through different i/o ports.

Experienced programmers know this, and constantly re-read their code to make sure it does what they think it does. But I just finished teaching programming to complete beginners, and this was a big hurdle. They would constantly say "My code's right, but the answer is wrong," not realizing the absurdity of the statement. It took a lot of time and patience to train them to always read the code they wrote.

At least in my own experience, I talk to myself without actually making any sounds when I am thinking (in my head, so to speak).

I never really thought that others would do it differently until this post.

Reading also can take on something of that ideographic nature of chinese -- take the word calligraphy. I don't need to read the letters and then put them in order and deduce that the word is 'calligraphy'. I see the whole shape of the word and comprehend it. Thisisalsowhyitssomuchahardertounderstandenglishwhenwedon'tputspacesbetweenwords.

I've got to say I scanned over that as quickly as the rest of the para and had no problem understanding it. Indeed it's hard not to see the word patterns. This sort of thing gets tricky when you remove the vowels or when there are collisions at word boundaries (expertsexchange, etc.).

I read it first as "this phrase is _more_ comprehensible" but knew it wasn't right.

Also you spelt "mispelled" incorrectly ;0)>

I have noticed that most of my thoughts originate as 'tendencies'. These tendencies are not verbal, but often vividly embody ideas. I then have to expend some effort to verbalize them. This is easily done for most of my thoughts (such as this one!), but for some, I find that the tendencies are not vivid enough or translating them effectively into words is beyond my current abilities.

I can get rid of the verbalizing stage altogether, which is what I would do when I automatically reason about where the center of gravity of a spoon I hold in my hand is.

Have you heard about the ideographic myth?

see http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/writjap.htm

To quote from that page: "Kana are read phonetically and kanji are read visually, with a dissociation between the processes involved, according to Morton & Sasanuma and popular Japanese belief. (This must be a little awkward in reading pages of mixed text, surely?) Nomura found that meaning was extracted faster from kanji than kana words, and thought that kana pronunciation was data-driven and that kanji pronunciation was conceptually-driven. Morton & Sasanuma (1982) also claimed that evidence supports the intuitive belief that kanji can give direct access to the meaning of words, but that kana always require translation into a phonological code when they are being read, and there is no development of automatic visual recognition of the kana symbols."

I believe Japanese uses the ideographic kanji for nouns, plus some adjectival and verbal roots, and the phonological kana for the rest, e.g. grammar words. In English, these same words classes (nouns, adjectives, inluding adverbs ending in -ly, and mosts verbs, except the most common ones) are the words we stress when speaking. Is this the same principle at work in both Japanese and English, where the content words of a language are stressed and easier to remember semantically, and the grammar words and morphological inflections are unstressed and easier to remember phonologically?

Is this also why in written German, the nouns are capitalized (as was Dutch until 50yrs ago and English until a few hundred years ago), because it helps if they stand out?

I'm not sure if that middle meaning (of disparate symbols that compose the whole) detracts from making the "word" in it's entirety less abstract, but I would say in general that I think about words in terms of their abstract meaning first, then about their relation to other meanings and words. In general (and more so today with spell check) I would say that no native speaker is thinking about the letters that compose a given word.... I'm sure that there are people who can recall words by thinking of the word as it's written- that sounds like one of those memory retention "hacks" I hear about sometimes. Maybe that system is just more prevalent in the asian education system.

Sadly the modern Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese are choosing an alphabetical system rather than Chinese characters. The one and only civilization today still using logograms is China.

You're right that the Koreans have pretty much abandoned logograms entirely, though. Now that they use hangul, I understand that there aren't many people remaining who can read anything written in their older writing systems.