So- A university professor in Las Vegas NV named Russell Hurlburt did a study in the 90’s using around 30 college students and from that study came the concept some people don’t have “inner voice,” more recently Hélène Lœvenbruck if the French National research institute (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) has studied up and conducted some studies and the numbers are estimated closer to 50-70% of people have no “inner voice.” That is to say that those people do not report “hearing” words in their head with clear tone and accent etc.
now I do have to mention that by nature these studies tend to be “self reported” since there isn’t really a way to measure what you hear or see in your head, and self reported studies can be notoriously inaccurate and are often constrained by sample size and demographics. Lœvenbruck Attempted to mitigate this through “online” survey but… well… that CAN get you a larger sample group that is otherwise practical and theoretically get…
.. diverse participants but it also doesn’t generally help issues with integrity in self reporting and you’re still potentially within a relatively narrow demographic of the sort of people who are online taking surveys about their psychology- so it isn’t perfect. It is an interesting idea- the take away not being that people without “inner voices” are somehow less autonomous, but that people think and conceptualize and experience cognition and consciousness differently. Lœvenbruck is exploring what she believes to be a link between a persons ability to visualize things mentally and the presence of an inner voice- her hypothesis being that based on her evidence that people who are less able or seemingly unable to visualize places or things or people well or at all in their minds appear to be more likely to report no inner voice. Or more accurately- people who report issues in visualization report not having an inner voice. But we cannot definitively say anything about the existence…
.. or prevalence if such phenomenon on the current research beyond that some people appear to think to feel or report they do and others don’t. So stating it as fact or defined statistic of the population does or does not is not presently accurate. As written the post does a good enough job of making some distinctions but the manner it is presented is perhaps too assertive. Much is left to the reader to determine- I mean.. if I post that 90% of people can survive without oxygen for 10 days one could say they “saw a stat that said…” so indeed- healthy skepticism or withholding validation until you have more information was the wise choice and I thank you all.
Ok… but who are the NPC’s then? I mean… technically the player character lacks internal monologue because they are just an avatar, any thoughts or such that occur for them happen outside the world of the game save for the following of commands. Quite often the player character doesn’t even have a story beyond what the player creates for them and put into their play as them. Their personality and thoughts and actions are defined by the player. Even when a player character has established story and goals, their actions and abilities may diverge greatly from the player characters in world perspectives and supposed skills and personality.
NPC’s on the other hand are often constantly performing various checks and running scripted logic or procedurally generated routines. They have established backstories and pasts and often relationships and alignments, goals or tasks and such.
Of course we can also argue that the player character responding to inputs is a form
Of internal monologue and that where a PC has an established backstory and identity/personality that inputs the player gives that contradict that could be viewed as a type of internal monologue- one where sometimes the PC acts true to archetype and sometimes they may even surprise themselves with how little they know their own self.
But… is there even a distinction? Between PC and NPC? What can we say if NPC’s? They are… bound to the rules laid out for them? Show me a game where the player is not constrained in what they can do.
That they are… predictable and follow loops? Isn’t this mostly true with players? There may be slightly more complexity or a wider poor for them to draw from- but don’t players generally follow loops and psychology and game play tend to define?
Each NPC plays a role in the game world.. is r that true of the PC as well? In Halo you are Master Chief perhaps- no matter what you except for lose you start where they start you, you end where they end you, and by and large the cutscenes all go the same and you do the job and go through the loop that was built for master chief- you’re loop tends to be bigger and more complex that the NPC’s but you’re still just doing a job and following the script. Even super open ended games like Morrowind or sand boxes like GTA or fallout… you are on the script or you never finish the game. If you never finish you are just another background extra not actively moving the plot along… like most NPC’s…
You generally only have so many dialog choices save for games like MMO’s where you talk to other humans- but ok. You have more dialog choices. Is that the difference between being a computer and a human? A larger lexicon?
I think it’s more than that. A non player character is simply a character that isn’t a player. They are limited by technology and game rules just like the player.
Those whom are NPCs are people who have seen the picture of Morgan Freeman next to lines of dalogue and not heard it narrated in his voice. "Titty-sprinkles".
After deep introspection in the issue I realize that I was being foolish in that I was missing this singular and fundamental truth that answers the question completely.
I concur 100% and your theory of NPC identification has now passed peer review.
Thinking is your inner voice conversing with the outer voice to form cognitive processes for the purpose of making ideas or solving problems. Having an inner voice is "I'm blue, da bo dee da boo da, da boo deeee da boo da, da boo dee da boo dahhh..." those who know, know.
@hangryyetti- it’s a valid question- and not one really knows. In fact we can’t say for certain that some people don’t have an inner voice- that isn’t something you can measure really (yet) with a tool, so you have to ask people “do you have an inner voice?” And go with their answer. But do the people who say no REALLY have no inner voice, or do they not notice? Some people don’t even notice their OUTER voices- ever hear someone say something or make a noise they swear they didn’t? Pronounce a word wrong they swear they aren’t saying that way? Often times people can’t even tell you what they are feeling. Some people are better are distinguishing emotions and others may need training to be able to recognize their emotions. So it’s all very… abstract.
That said- there are THEORIES on the significance but none presently have much weight. Some say an “inner voice” helps us to reason, that without an inner voice whatever benefit we might get from one can only be had in some measure by speaking out loud- and if we can’t or won’t do that we get no benefit. Others say an inner voice can be a bad thing- it can delay reactions, it can lead us into cycles like anxiety or depression by having “negative” words with ourselves.
At the extreme end- some theorize that not having an inner voice is a trait of a more… simple or primitive mind that hasn’t evolved to examine itself- it doesn’t have thoughts and process them consciously but instead is simply a being which acts on thought. There is little to no support to this and it is more a speculation than anything. Conversely some argue no inner voice is a sign of evolution forward, not a relic of past. That as humans have evolved into social creatures, the more evolved of our species adapt to not need to have as much of an inner voice and might instead be better suited for social living and the success that has brought out species. This is again- speculation.
At the end of the day there needs to be much more study and larger samples and ideally technology and tools developed to quantify and confirm findings beyond self reported accounts. At present the front runner- and what the answer may ultimately be- is that wether one has an inner voice or not is either a cause or effect or otherwise related to how one processes information and interacts with the world. People who are linguistic in their perceptions may have inner voices and process stimuli and thoughts and such as words which they “hear” and people who are more visual or abstract base in their processing. So when your eyes pick up the light reflecting from a tree- a signal goes to your brain and your brain must quickly identify the item. It’s all more complex than one might think (one of the hurdles to “AI” and such)
So it might just be in how your brain retrieves or identifies that information. An example is various types of art and such. Some people can see some items of clothing and pick a set that others will find pleasing while some can’t. If we compare two people who have never drawn before or played an instrument, one may do much better than the other for a first try or improve more and/or at a greater pace. But- the ability to see a field of flowers and reproduce an image as beautiful and the ability to write a description of the same field in words that gives the reader a vivid picture and/or feeling of being there aren’t the same and most people who can do one cannot automatically do the other or even be good at both with extensive practice.
So most likely the “brass tacks” significance of having an inner voice or not comes down to things like how we learn or process information with pros and cons to each.
For any sort of deeper insight into what it means about is as humans or more high concept or abstract ideas like how that relates to consciousness or such… we are likely a long way if ever from answering those questions. We need way more data and a method to collect it with more reliability and depth than asking people “do you hear a voice in your head…?”
now I do have to mention that by nature these studies tend to be “self reported” since there isn’t really a way to measure what you hear or see in your head, and self reported studies can be notoriously inaccurate and are often constrained by sample size and demographics. Lœvenbruck Attempted to mitigate this through “online” survey but… well… that CAN get you a larger sample group that is otherwise practical and theoretically get…
NPC’s on the other hand are often constantly performing various checks and running scripted logic or procedurally generated routines. They have established backstories and pasts and often relationships and alignments, goals or tasks and such.
Of internal monologue and that where a PC has an established backstory and identity/personality that inputs the player gives that contradict that could be viewed as a type of internal monologue- one where sometimes the PC acts true to archetype and sometimes they may even surprise themselves with how little they know their own self.
But… is there even a distinction? Between PC and NPC? What can we say if NPC’s? They are… bound to the rules laid out for them? Show me a game where the player is not constrained in what they can do.
That they are… predictable and follow loops? Isn’t this mostly true with players? There may be slightly more complexity or a wider poor for them to draw from- but don’t players generally follow loops and psychology and game play tend to define?
I think it’s more than that. A non player character is simply a character that isn’t a player. They are limited by technology and game rules just like the player.
I concur 100% and your theory of NPC identification has now passed peer review.
For any sort of deeper insight into what it means about is as humans or more high concept or abstract ideas like how that relates to consciousness or such… we are likely a long way if ever from answering those questions. We need way more data and a method to collect it with more reliability and depth than asking people “do you hear a voice in your head…?”