The Voices In My Head

[Perrie Juran]

I have thought about this before but can't think that I have heard it discussed before:

The Voices In My Head.

Oftentimes when I am reading something, I read with a tone or an inflection or an accent in my mind.....the voice of the writer.  Mostly it seems to be something I do unconsciously.

If I have perceived someone as a whiner, I will hear a whiney voice.  There was a post recently that I read as a whine but then I stopped myself.  Re read as if it was simply an adult laying out a problem they were trying to solve.  And it practically changed the whole meaning of what they had said and how I responded.

Do you do this too?  Assign a voice or a tone or an inflection as you read what others have wrote?

[Alicia Sautereau]

Yep, i even do it with my own stupid bad jokes, wich mostly fail because of that

[BlackMagi Darkwatch]

*smiles* All the time ...  that is why half the time I leave it to the serious Forum readers/responders to try and figure out what the OP is actually asking!  Now, you - you little martian you, you have an adult metalic sort of voice in my mind (thinking back to a long eared carrot munching super bunny) that always makes me grin ...  yeah sure - then I go back and re-read with sensible head, but, it's true - there are certain posters here (that I hold in the highest esteem) who I've given voices to...  no names of course - they are my voices for those posters

[Phil Deakins]

Ignore the other replies. It's something that's unique to Martians. We Earth people don't suffer from it.

[Canoro Philipp]

i do that all the time, i cant help but doing it, it seems unnatural to me to read something without an accent, i try to look deep into the person who wrote it like if i was writing it, what do i want others to understand from it? how well can i explain what i want to everyone? how eager i am to be understood? i take those things into account when i read a post, probably the person is stressed if it has a problem s/he cant solve, probaly struggles to explain what s/he wants but leave some clues in what s/he says, probably lets emotion filter into the message and may distort a bit the message but in doing so is telling us how important it is for that person.

i always hear their voices, their accents, their emotions when im reading the posts.

[Amie Kaestner]

My brain does that too. Sorry, you're not special.

[Echo Hermit]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

I have thought about this before but can't think that I have heard it discussed before:

The Voices In My Head.

Oftentimes when I am reading something, I read with a tone or an inflection or an accent in my mind.....the voice of the writer.  Mostly it seems to be something I do unconsciously.

If I have perceived someone as a whiner, I will hear a whiney voice.  There was a post recently that I read as a whine but then I stopped myself.  Re read as if it was simply an adult laying out a problem they were trying to solve.  And it practically changed the whole meaning of what they had said and how I responded.

Do you do this too?  Assign a voice or a tone or an inflection as you read what others have wrote?

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Crikey, yes, I do tend to do this too. Sometimes there are images as well, not only of what I imagine the person looks like, height, skintone etc., but what type of room they might be in.  (I heard someone snicker "mostly basements" - bloody hell what is it they say, oh yes, you're never alone with schizophrenia!).

 

[Kenbro Utu]

Sorry, all I hear are these robotic sounding intonations, something that sounds like "Take me to your leader."

[Orca Flotta]

Heck, Perrie, your head must be a noisy place. I wouldn't wanna be in there.

As for me, my disregard for other beeings goes so far, I don't even check who the poster is when reading the forum. I only care about the content of a certain post. And that's it. No voices, no nothing, just content.

What I hear when internetting is music. iTunes keeps me well entertained and my feet tapping. Same when I'm inworld, I mostly have SL sounds off, no voice, no ambient, no gestures. It would just distract me from the music.

 

[Alazarin Mondrian]

I would consider vocalised internal dialogue to be to be not only entirely normal, but also necessary in order to keep track of and differentiate between different strands of thought. Seeing how we use language as a means of defining and communicating ideas and concepts, why should those 'voices' be so strange?

Much more worrisome are those people whose minds are total blanks all the time. And no, I'm not referring to those who practice meditation in order to still the mind as that's practised self-control. As for reading, I'll use various voices for different characters / scenarios when I read at a normal pace. If I'm speed-reading or cramming my way through a technical document or manual I tend to switch off the interpretative processes and merely chew words.

[Maryanne Solo]

Interesting to have a recorder going for an hour or so whilst browsing the net, net banking or doing anything on PC.

You might think that you don't say a thing when you are alone and thinking you are as quiet as a mouse.

I bet you will be shocked at the results of your recording 

Oops sorry that was a general reply to the OP.

[Alazarin Mondrian]

Ah, what I meant was verbalised: thoughts expressed in words as an internal dialogue and not neccessarily vocalised as speech. It's early in the morning for me. But, yeah, plenty of times thoughts do get vocalised. We're all familiar with the expressions relating to opening one's mouth before thinking, etc.

[VRprofessor]

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Alazarin Mondrian wrote:

I would consider vocalized internal dialogue to be to be not only entirely normal, but also necessary in order to keep track of and differentiate between different strands of thought. Seeing how we use language as a means of defining and communicating ideas and concepts, why should those 'voices' be so strange?

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Exactly.  Multiple indistinguishable voices would make reading for pleasure not very pleasurable.  The writer presumably wants you to become immersed in the story.  Part of the immersion is "hearing" the different characters all speaking in their own unique voice.  Authors routinely include information about the speaker's accent either directly (she said with just a hint of Irish brogue) or using non-standard spellings exactly so you can hear the characters voice.

I would expect that those who can immerse themselves in SL for long periods of time are probably better at this than others, but hardly unique.

[Madelaine McMasters]

I do most of my reading sans voice, or with something I'd describe as being on the edge of a voice. It's non descript and feels as if it's not entirely there. I suspect my subconscious is vocalizing away and I'm only occasionally aware of it. When I want to internally vocalize, I can conjur up endless voices.

Perrie, I generally read your posts like most of what I read, with that barely there voice, which my brain also uses for writing (I say "brain" to distinguish from my conscious self, which generally doesn't think about voices when writing, it just thinks about what to write). When you visited my fireplace as Marvin for the "Warm Welcome" I gave you long ago, I did not read your chat text in Marvin the Martian's voice. That's because I was thinking of you as Perrie in a Marvin avatar. When your forum posts infer your being a Martian, I still do not read them in Marvin's voice. But on those occasions where I've responded to you by quoting from Marvin, as in "Where's the Earth shattering KABOOM?!", I vocalize internally in Marvin's voice (well okay, I vocalized that out loud too ;-)

When I read something that contains quotes, whether I vocalize or not depends on the context. If it's a quote from Tim Geithner in a Bloomberg News story, I don't vocalize (beyone that automatic barely there voice). If it's a quote from Louis Armstrong, I'll use his raspy voice. If I'm reading dialog between characters in a book, I will conjur appropriate voices, but they are not strong. If I'm reading dialog between characters who's voices I know, for example a dialog between Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, I will vocalize with the full depth and breadth of expression of Mel Blanc's wonderful voice.

I think this subconscious ability is natural. Whether we plumb it for pleasure may be a conscious decision.

[Perrie Juran]

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VRprofessor wrote:

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Alazarin Mondrian wrote:

I would consider vocalized internal dialogue to be to be not only entirely normal, but also necessary in order to keep track of and differentiate between different strands of thought. Seeing how we use language as a means of defining and communicating ideas and concepts, why should those 'voices' be so strange?

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Exactly.  Multiple indistinguishable voices would make reading for pleasure not very pleasurable.  The writer presumably wants you to become immersed in the story.  Part of the immersion is "hearing" the different characters all speaking in their own unique voice.  Authors routinely include information about the speaker's accent either directly (she said with just a hint of Irish brogue) or using non-standard spellings exactly so you can hear the characters voice.

I would expect that those who can immerse themselves in SL for long periods of time are probably better at this than others, but hardly unique.

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"Authors routinely include information about the speaker's accent either directly (she said with just a hint of Irish brogue)"

This reminds me of a little RL experience.  The first time that I met a Black man from England.  I had never heard a Black man speak with a British accent before.  My brain had trouble at first associating the accent with the person.  Perhaps the extreme example for me of 'the voice doesn't fit with the person.'

"The writer presumably wants you to become immersed in the story."

I have been slowly working my way through Moby Dick.  I have jokingly sub titled it "Every Thing You Ever Wanted To Know About Whales But Were Afraid To Ask."  The book get's very tedious at times.  Thirty pages on the cultural significance of the color white!  But it helps you to understand what would have been going through these sailor's minds while pursuing Moby Dick.

 

[Orca Flotta]

Yes, exactly Madeleine, that was the best definition of what's going on in my head when reading anything: a undistinctive, barely there, voice. I read everything, forum posts, novels, blog entries with some kind of melody and speach pattern ... but it's not that of an  actor or any person but my own. And never in dialect or slang. I'm happy if I get the intonation of the weird english language correctly. But I won't even add any dialect to something I read in german.

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

 

I think this subconscious ability is natural. Whether we plumb it for pleasure may be a conscious decision.

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I don't read all posts with a 'voice.'  I have what I guess I might refer to as a 'neutral voice.'  I can't think that I 'consciously' decide to add or use a voice.  For the most part it just happens.

I have always appreciated your help with my forum badge. How Marvin came into being really just started as 'funning around' with a friend In World. Later on I brought his character into the Forum originally in the form of Pregnant Marvin when replying in a thread about Tummy Talkers, which are something I dislike.

On the occasions I bring Marvin In World he does always seem to have some unique experiences. 

As a human I never have trouble finding a dance partner at a club.  But as Marvin.........forget it.  But maybe that is a good thing.  Why would I want to spend time with someone who doesn't have a sense of humor?  Still, Marvin can get quite lonely at times.

 

[Phil Deakins]

I'm going to be different - not intentionally, just truthfully.

I don't read in inflections or accents in my mind, except when the character in the story has been given an accent. Then ,if I remember each time the character speaks (and it's a bif 'if'), I'll think the words in that accent. But I never change the voice in my head to suit what I imagine the writer must sound like. Not that I'm aware of anyway.

[Kelli May]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

I have thought about this before but can't think that I have heard it discussed before:

The Voices In My Head.

Oftentimes when I am reading something, I read with a tone or an inflection or an accent in my mind.....the voice of the writer.  Mostly it seems to be something I do unconsciously.

If I have perceived someone as a whiner, I will hear a whiney voice.  There was a post recently that I read as a whine but then I stopped myself.  Re read as if it was simply an adult laying out a problem they were trying to solve.  And it practically changed the whole meaning of what they had said and how I responded.

Do you do this too?  Assign a voice or a tone or an inflection as you read what others have wrote?

---

When I read most posts I only think in a somewhat neutral voice, but it's very different when I read a novel. Not only do I establish a 'narrative' voice in my head, but I start thinking in the same voice after I've finished reading. I start to imagine my own internal monologue as if it had been written by that particular author. It only lasts for a short time, perhaps an hour or so after I put a book down, and it is mostly likely to occur when I'm reading an author with a distinctive style.

[Solaria Goldshark]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

Do you do this too?  Assign a voice or a tone or an inflection as you read what others have wrote?

---

The other day I shot off an e-mail while at work.  I was consciously irritated by the person I was writing to and trying to be careful with the wording to get my point across, and having reread it several times before I hit send, the response came back as rather snooty.  I gathered that the other person saw through the words and straight through to my irritated tone, which I'm sure I had taken great effort to avoid.

Now I'm not sure how much of this was my own coloring of a situation and an exchange of words filtered through me and perceived as a complete disaster, or the words themselves.

Did I add the voice?  Or was it the other person?

All I know is that there is a lot of coloring added to words written that were never intended.  The intended tone and voice to the written word is hard to properly achieve and all to easy to muck up.

Perception is everything, and not just our own that counts.

[Dillon Levenque]

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Solaria Goldshark wrote:

All I know is that there is a lot of coloring added to words written that were never intended.  The intended tone and voice to the written word is hard to properly achieve and all to easy to muck up.

Perception is everything, and not just our own that counts.

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How true. Long ago when I was young, Mom said something like, "If you have something really personal and important to say, don't write a letter—too easy to be misunderstood." This was of course back when letters were actually written with ink on paper, but that's beside the point. I often think of that in Second Life. We are known to say rather important and personal things to each other with nothing but letters. The loss of the visual cues really does make a difference. Not enough to persuade me to want Voice and Cam, but a difference nonetheless.

And in answer to the OP—I seem to be like a lot of people who've responded. I 'hear' the words, but always in the same voice. If a character has an accent I hear the accent but the voice does not change. The voice just temporarily has an accent.

[Petronilla Whitfield]

The only time I read text with a tone/inflection/accent in my head is when reading a book written in first person by someone whose voice I am familiar with (such as a radio personality who writes a book), or when a book has been adapted into a film, in which case I hear the voices of the actors.  In those circumstances, I can't help but hear the words in a particular voice--I can't "turn it off" even if I want to.  Other than those circumstances, I never associate a voice with written text--in books, forums, or anywhere.  Still less do I imagine a physical being or a setting.  

By the way, I read a *lot,* both for my job and for pleasure.  I usually have a couple of novels going at any given time.

I'm not sure that I would expect to find that  the tendency to assign a voice to a text is greater among the population that enjoys Second Life, but I would not be at all surprised to find that it is common among those who enjoy role-playing.   I've never been able to see the point of role-playing, and I suspect that it requires a tendency to interact with the other players as "characters" whom you have fleshed-out in your own mind, which I simply can't do.

[Madelaine McMasters]

Our subconsious builds a model of our world and our conscious notices differences between the model and sensory input. Once you've heard a person's voice, it's in the model for that person and forever after, you'll hear that modeled voice when thinking of the person. Absent a voice to model when reading a character's words, we'll create that neutral, barely there voice that I mentioned earlier, or perhaps we'll assign a voice we've heard from someone who's behavior is reminiscent.

I think we've all had the experience of seeing a book character come to life on-screen looking and sounding much different than we'd imagined. This is because the director and casting folks pulled from their mental models, not ours. We also can experience this when seeing a radio personality for the first time, where our model of the face is constructed from correlations we've observed between voices and faces.