This week I have been thinking constantly about changing my PhD thesis subject from mental representation to inner speech. What do you all say, yeah or nah? 👀 - ThreadSky

evolanguagemind.bsky.social • 44 days ago

This week I have been thinking constantly about changing my PhD thesis subject from mental representation to inner speech.

What do you all say, yeah or nah? 👀

Comments

doctorcochrane.bsky.social•44 days ago

It depends how deep you are into it I suppose- or whether you can retune your previous writing towards the inner speech issue. Inner speech is certainly a good topic. But a PhD is ultimately just an exam to pass.

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•44 days ago

In my case I'm about to begin my first semester. 🤔

firepile.bsky.social•44 days ago

There is surprisingly little consensus on inner speech! I had a psych student doing an honors thesis last year on this and the instruments to measure it are... not good! And the definitions to describe it to subjects are... not good! There's probably so much good space for theory to clarify it!

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•44 days ago

Thanks for the support! :P

Indeed, the very issue about *what it's inner speech* it's highly contested!

remisramos.bsky.social•44 days ago

Go for it!

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•44 days ago

💪🏻

kenaizawa.bsky.social•41 days ago

Unless you have some new line on mental reps go with inner speech.

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•41 days ago

Indeed, I think I can do something more original on inner speech —it also helps that the amount of material about it is not soooo vast as with mental representation.

kenaizawa.bsky.social•41 days ago

There is something to be said for picking the low hanging fruit.

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•41 days ago

Sorry, I'm not familiar with the expression. What do you mean? 😅

kenaizawa.bsky.social•41 days ago

Get the easy things. Low hanging fruit is easy to get.

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•41 days ago

Oh, I see. Thanks for the clarification!

Indeed. Even tho I'm not sure if it's the easiest option, but I do think that it's more viable to make some progress in that subject. 😅

neuroyogacara.bsky.social•44 days ago

Inner speech seems more tractable, and more likely to yield cool and surprising insights. Mental reps are so contentious along numerous dimensions that it might be hard to say something both new and plausible.

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•44 days ago

That's precisely what I have been thinking!

And you saying this for me means a lot. I'm definitely gonna talk about this with my advisor next week —btw, B, I'm gonna work with Santiago Arango.

neuroyogacara.bsky.social•44 days ago

Oh that’s awesome. I haven’t seen him for a long time, but tell him I say Hi!

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•44 days ago

B, if you can, I would love to chat with you about it! 😁

neuroyogacara.bsky.social•44 days ago

Absolutely. I’m at a workshop this week but after that am back around

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•44 days ago

Thanks!

We can talk next week then. 😁

mljanderson.bsky.social•44 days ago

I’m with @neuroyogacara.bsky.social Mental representation is a tired and ungrounded subject. Real reportable phenomena like inner speech and mental imagery are so much more fruitful to study.

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•44 days ago

Thanks for your comment! It means a lot to me.

Something that I think I could sink my teeth into is the lead that you left open at the end of your book!

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•44 days ago

In line with that, I would love to know your opinion on something: I know that regarding on-line cognition you take a REC stance, but what about the kind of off-line stuff that inner speech makes possible, do you still maintain a REC position about that?

mljanderson.bsky.social•44 days ago

I don’t have a settled opinion on that. We need thoughtful research in this area. I’m not generally dogmatic. Imagination and inner speech are real phenomena (I’m hearing, in some sense, this skeet right now). But are they classical representational phenomena? Let the data speak!

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•44 days ago

More and more this subject seems to be really promising!

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•44 days ago

A Desiderata for a theory of inner speech and its role in cognition must be the way that complements the embodied and situated perspective about online cognition.

mljanderson.bsky.social•44 days ago

That’s why I included it! Just do it! (Is there a swish on this keyboard?)

evolanguagemind.bsky.social•44 days ago

I will!

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