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As you read these words, do you hear them being narrated inside your head? If so, whose voice are you listening to?
Chances are you probably do experience each word as though it were literally being read to you by some miniature being who lives inside your brain. Research has shown that the majority of people have what’s known as an “inner reading voice” (IRV), although not everyone shares this characteristic and the nature of this internal bookworm can vary from person to person.
The two most significant studies on this subject were conducted by New York University Professor of Psychology Ruvanee Vilhauer, who first began to unravel the nature of IRVs after scanning the internet for reports of people’s reading experiences. Based on a series of 136 posts, she determined that 82.5 percent of people do hear a voice when they read, and that these IRVs almost always “have the auditory qualities of overt speech, such as recognizable identity, gender, pitch, loudness and emotional tone.”
Around half of those who experienced IRVs heard only one voice – typically their own – although some people claimed to have multiple narrators inside their head. For instance, when reading dialog, the imagined voices of different characters would sometimes take the mic, while letters, emails and other written communication from friends or family can be read internally using the sender’s voice.
In a subsequent paper, Vilhauer used questionnaires to assess the phenomenon in 570 volunteers, around four-fifths of whom reported always or sometimes hearing IRVs when reading. Curiously, however, the remaining 20 percent said they simply “understood words being read without hearing an inner voice.”
www.iflscience.com
I read with the inner voice. How about you? Lets do our own study...
Chances are you probably do experience each word as though it were literally being read to you by some miniature being who lives inside your brain. Research has shown that the majority of people have what’s known as an “inner reading voice” (IRV), although not everyone shares this characteristic and the nature of this internal bookworm can vary from person to person.
The two most significant studies on this subject were conducted by New York University Professor of Psychology Ruvanee Vilhauer, who first began to unravel the nature of IRVs after scanning the internet for reports of people’s reading experiences. Based on a series of 136 posts, she determined that 82.5 percent of people do hear a voice when they read, and that these IRVs almost always “have the auditory qualities of overt speech, such as recognizable identity, gender, pitch, loudness and emotional tone.”
Around half of those who experienced IRVs heard only one voice – typically their own – although some people claimed to have multiple narrators inside their head. For instance, when reading dialog, the imagined voices of different characters would sometimes take the mic, while letters, emails and other written communication from friends or family can be read internally using the sender’s voice.
In a subsequent paper, Vilhauer used questionnaires to assess the phenomenon in 570 volunteers, around four-fifths of whom reported always or sometimes hearing IRVs when reading. Curiously, however, the remaining 20 percent said they simply “understood words being read without hearing an inner voice.”
Does Everyone Hear A Voice In Their Head When They Read?
And how many different voices live inside your head?
www.iflscience.com
I read with the inner voice. How about you? Lets do our own study...
