Pristine Inner Experience While Silent Reading: It's Not Silent Speaking of the Text

Authors

Vincent P. Brouwers, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Christopher L. Heavey, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Leiszle R. Lapping-Carr, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Stefanie Moynihan, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Jason M. Kelsey, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Russell Hurlburt, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2018

Publication Title

Journal of Consciousness Studies

Volume

25

Issue

2018-03-04

First page number:

29

Last page number:

54

Abstract

We used Descriptive Experience Sampling to explore the pristine inner experience of 16 college students while reading Fitzgerald and Hemingway short stories. We provide rich descriptions of the phenomena while reading. Visual imagery was frequent. Although many theorists presume the ubiquitous presence of an inner voice that narrates the text as it is read, we found that only about 3% of samples involved such inner narration. Words were experienced during about a quarter of all samples, including: a focus on specific words from the text (but which were not merely inner reading), words innerly spoken in response to the text (content was related to the text but not of the text itself), and innerly spoken unrelated words (apparently not connected to the text). We suggest that presuppositions account for others' overestimation of silent speech frequency, and discuss the impact of these findings on understanding reading and consciousness science.

Keywords

Descriptive Experience Sampling; Inner speaking; Inner speech; Iterative method; Phenomenology; Pristine inner experience; Reading; Silent reading

Disciplines

Applied Behavior Analysis | Cognition and Perception | Psychology

Language

English

Repository Citation

Brouwers, V. P., Heavey, C. L., Lapping-Carr, L. R., Moynihan, S., Kelsey, J. M., Hurlburt, R. (2018). Pristine Inner Experience While Silent Reading: It's Not Silent Speaking of the Text. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 25(2018-03-04), 29-54.