Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA.
Behav Res Methods. 2020 Oct;52(5):2053-2070. doi: 10.3758/s13428-020-01354-y.
Does the format in which we experience our moment-to-moment thoughts vary from person to person? Many people claim that their thinking takes place in an inner voice and that using language outside of interpersonal communication is a regular experience for them. Other people disagree. We present a novel measure, the Internal Representation Questionnaire (IRQ) designed to assess people's subjective mode of internal representations, and to quantify individual differences in "modes of thinking" along multiple factors in a single questionnaire. Exploratory factor analysis identified four factors: Internal Verbalization, Visual Imagery, Orthographic Imagery, and Representational Manipulation. All four factors were positively correlated with one another, but accounted for unique predictions. We describe the properties of the IRQ and report a test of its ability to predict patterns of interference in a speeded word-picture verification task. Taken together, the results suggest that self-reported differences in how people internally represent their thoughts relates to differences in processing familiar images and written words.
我们体验瞬间思维的方式是否因人而异？许多人声称他们的思维是以内心声音的形式进行的，并且对于他们来说，在人际交流之外使用语言是一种常见的体验。其他人则不同意。我们提出了一种新的测量方法，即内部表象问卷（IRQ），旨在评估人们主观的内部表象模式，并在单个问卷中量化“思维模式”在多个因素上的个体差异。探索性因素分析确定了四个因素：内部言语化、视觉表象、正字法表象和表象操作。这四个因素彼此之间呈正相关，但可以做出独特的预测。我们描述了 IRQ 的特性，并报告了一项测试，以检验其在快速单词-图片验证任务中的干扰模式预测能力。总之，研究结果表明，人们自我报告的内部思维方式的差异与处理熟悉的图像和书面文字的差异有关。
