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The age of social media has shown humanity a fair few truths about itself, not all of them flattering. But once in a while, one of the waves of discourse that roll through the internet really does help us better understand one another. Take the surprise some have expressed in recent years upon finding out that the expression to “picture” something in one’s head isn’t just a figure of speech. You mean that people “picturing an apple,” say, haven’t been just thinking about an apple, but actually seeing one in their heads? The inability to do that has a name: aphantasia, from the Greek word phantasia, “image,” and prefix –a, “without.”
That same template has lately been used to create another term, anendophasia, whose roots endo and phasia mean “inner” and “speech.” As you might expect, the word refers to the lack of an internal monologue. That sounds bizarre to many who hear it for the first time: some because they can’t imagine thinking in words, and others because they can’t imagine thinking in anything else.
These, as explained in the Voided Thoughts video above, are just some of the ways the experiences inside our heads differ. Some 40 percent of us hear and even have conversations with “internal voices,” about 50 percent of us see things in our mind’s eye instead, and some 20 percent report thinking exclusively in feelings. Those who belong to one of those groups will have trouble imagining what life is like for anyone in the others.
This owes to the inherent inaccessibility of one human being’s subjective experience to another, a condition that has bedeviled philosophers practically since the emergence of their profession. But scientific researchers have also been looking into it, and their studies have suggested that the capacity for internal monologues and mental pictures makes more than a trivial difference in one’s life. Visual thinkers, the video notes, tend to be better at memorization; verbal thinkers “usually have an edge when it comes to planning, problem-solving, and rehearsing,” but they’re also “more prone to looping thoughts.” In practice, most of us use both forms of thinking in different proportions depending on the situation, and thus, to an extent, enjoy both sets of advantages — and should watch out for both sets of disadvantages.
Related content:
How to Silence the Negative Chatter in Our Heads: Psychology Professor Ethan Kross Explains
How to Improve Your Memory: Four TED Talks Explain the Techniques to Remember Anything
The Secret to High Performance and Fulfilment: Psychologist Daniel Goleman Explains the Power of Focus
Why You Do Your Best Thinking In The Shower: Creativity & the “Incubation Period”
What a Lack of Social Contact Does to Your Brain
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. He’s the author of the newsletter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Summarizing Korea) and Korean Newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
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