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Experimental research indicates that verbalizing names, steps, and information can modify performance in specific tasks of attention, perception, and working memory, helping to explain why self-directed speech appears in everyday life without representing, by itself, a lack of rationality.
When remembering a task, searching for an object, or mentally organizing the next steps, many people resort to their own voice without realizing that this behavior may fulfill a specific cognitive function, related to the demands of the activity being performed at that moment.
Far from meaning that any spoken thought improves performance, evidence shows that the usefulness of self-directed speech depends on the correspondence between the words used, the task’s objective, and the controlled conditions in each experiment.
Talking to oneself can help in searching for objects
Published in June 2012 in the journal Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, a study by Gary Lupyan and Daniel Swingley investigated whether repeating the name of a certain object could alter participants’ performance during a visual search task.
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While searching for common items presented by the researchers, the volunteers would sometimes pronounce the name of the desired target, allowing the authors to compare the results of verbalization with those obtained in situations where the search occurred silently.
The data indicated that locating became easier mainly when there was a clear connection between the spoken word and the appearance of the item being searched for, favoring the recognition of visual characteristics compatible with the presented target.
In this context, verbal labels can temporarily influence visual processing, making certain traits more accessible and helping to direct attention to elements that correspond to the object mentioned during the task.
This effect, however, did not appear automatically in all analyzed conditions, as the usefulness of verbalization decreased when the pronounced name did not adequately represent the visual characteristics of the item that should be located.
In situations with a greater distance between the word and the appearance of the target, speech even impaired performance, a result that reinforces the importance of the relationship between the verbalized content and the available visual information.
Private speech influences working memory
Another investigation, published in November 2023 in the scientific journal Consciousness and Cognition, examined the association between private speech and cognitive performance in young adults, focusing the analysis on a specific visuospatial working memory task.
Conducted by Xinqi Guo and Karen Dobkins from the University of California, San Diego, the study gathered 103 participants with an average age slightly over 20 years and compared the performance obtained under different experimental conditions.
In one of the stages, the volunteers were allowed to talk to themselves while performing the activity, whereas, in the other condition, they were instructed to remain silent during the maintenance and manipulation of the presented information.
Performance was better when participants were able to use private speech, especially in the stages where they produced a greater amount of verbalizations while mentally tracking the visual elements required by the task proposed by the researchers.
To modify the level of difficulty, the authors adjusted the ease with which the images could be named, observing whether this characteristic would alter the relationship between verbalization and the results obtained by the participants throughout the experiment.
Still, the favorable effects associated with private speech did not depend on this specific variation, according to the presented results, which maintained the observed relationship between the use of one’s own voice and performance in the analyzed activity.
Among the greatest recorded benefits were those achieved by participants who spoke more during the experiment and by people who reported frequently resorting to verbalizations aimed at task and behavior management in daily life.
Although they mentioned possible implications for educational and instructional contexts, the researchers did not claim that the strategy produces the same results in any situation, nor that it can be indiscriminately applied to different forms of learning.
By evaluating a defined cognitive activity, the study does not allow the observed improvement to be transformed into a universal rule, applicable to every person, task, or circumstance in which someone decides to pronounce their own thoughts out loud.
How words can guide thought
When internal information is converted into audible language, the person deals not only with the mental representation of the task but also with the sound stimulus produced by their own voice during the execution of the activity.
In visual search, the word can highlight characteristics related to the sought object and guide attention, while in working memory, verbalization can accompany the maintenance of the information necessary to complete the proposed task.
This does not mean, however, that any type of speech produces the same effect, as experiments indicate the importance of the verbalized content and its direct relationship with what needs to be located, remembered, or organized.
Commenting on a sequence of actions, repeating the name of an item, or describing information can serve as support in certain circumstances, as long as the words contribute to the goal instead of introducing incompatible stimuli.
The usefulness of self-directed speech therefore depends on the task and the accuracy of the chosen words, since appropriate verbalization can guide processing, while an expression unrelated to the target can also divert attention.
The scope of research on talking to oneself
The evidence helps to dispel the interpretation that talking to oneself is, in isolation, a manifestation of irrationality, as studies have treated this behavior as a measurable cognitive strategy during common tasks involving attention, perception, and memory.
At the same time, the experiments did not investigate all the reasons why a person talks to themselves nor did they authorize general conclusions about personality, social behavior, self-awareness, or conditions related to mental health.
It was also not broadly demonstrated that the habit increases confidence, improves emotional control, or produces identical benefits in any individual, as the results are limited to the activities and conditions effectively evaluated.
More than the simple act of speaking, the content of verbalization, the nature of the task, and the correspondence between word and goal seem to determine the observed effect, establishing important limits for the interpretation of scientific findings.
When needing to locate an object, follow a sequence of steps, or keep information active for a few moments, to what extent could saying out loud what is being sought or organized modify your performance?
