Measuring the Frequency of Inner-Experience Characteristics by Self-Report: The Nevada Inner Experience Questionnaire

Heavey, Christopher L.; Moynihan, Stefanie A.; Brouwers, Vincent P.; Lapping-Carr, Leiszle; Krumm, Alek E.; Kelsey, Jason M.; Turner, Dio K.; Hurlburt, Russell T.

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02615

Cited by 22 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Our studies used two questionnaires, the STS and the Nevada Inner Experience Questionnaire (NIEQ; Heavey et al, 2019). We used the STS to allow replication of Brinthaupt et al (2015).…”

Section: Three Studies Comparing Questionnaires and Desmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Measuring the Frequency of Inner-Experience Characteristics

Hurlburt

Heavey

Lapping-Carr

et al. 2021

Perspect Psychol Sci

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Inner experience is widely accepted by psychologists and lay people as being straightforwardly observable: Inner speech, visual images, feelings, and so on are understood to be directly apprehendable “before the footlights of consciousness.” Many psychologists hold that such characteristics of inner experience play substantial theoretical roles and have applied significance across a wide range of cognitive, affective, performance, and clinical situations. If so, the frequency of occurrence of these characteristics is of fundamental importance. Such frequencies are usually estimated by questionnaires or by questionnaire-based experience sampling. However, there are reasons to wonder about the accuracy of such questionnaire-based estimates. We present three studies that compared, head-to-head, questionnaire-based experiential frequencies with frequencies discovered using descriptive experience sampling (DES), a method for random sampling in the natural environment that aspires to apprehend inner experience with as high fidelity as the state of the art allows. Together, they suggest that estimates of inner-experience frequency produced by questionnaires and DES are irreconcilably discrepant: Questionnaire-based methods produced dramatically higher (from 2 to 4 times as high) frequencies than did DES. These results suggest caution when interpreting questionnaire-based experiential results and the importance of additional high-fidelity studies of inner experience.

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“…Our studies used two questionnaires, the STS and the Nevada Inner Experience Questionnaire (NIEQ; Heavey et al, 2019). We used the STS to allow replication of Brinthaupt et al (2015).…”

Section: Three Studies Comparing Questionnaires and Desmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… Note: STS = Self-Talk Scale (Brinthaupt et al, 2009); DES = descriptive experience sampling; NIEQ = Nevada Inner Experience Questionnaire (Heavey et al, 2019). a STS percentages were derived from STS total score following Brinthaupt et al (2015, p. 6): STS percentage = 100 × (STS total – 16)/64.…”

Section: Three Studies Comparing Questionnaires and Desmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring the Frequency of Inner-Experience Characteristics

Hurlburt

Heavey

Lapping-Carr

et al. 2021

Perspect Psychol Sci

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“…Other recently developed subjective assessment tools include the Nevada Inner Experience Questionnaire (Heavey et al, 2019) and the Internal Representations Questionnaire (IRQ) (Roebuck & Lupyan, 2020). Many of these tools have distinct aims and foci, making their results difficult to compare.…”

Section: Methods For Investigating Inner Speechmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inner speech

Langland‐Hassan

2020

WIRES Cognitive Science

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Inner speech travels under many aliases: the inner voice, verbal thought, thinking in words, internal verbalization, “talking in your head,” the “little voice in the head,” and so on. It is both a familiar element of first‐person experience and a psychological phenomenon whose complex cognitive components and distributed neural bases are increasingly well understood. There is evidence that inner speech plays a variety of cognitive roles, from enabling abstract thought, to supporting metacognition, memory, and executive function. One active area of controversy concerns the relation of inner speech to auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) in schizophrenia, with a common proposal being that sufferers of AVH misidentify their own inner speech as being generated by someone else. Recently, researchers have used artificial intelligence to translate the neural and neuromuscular signatures of inner speech into corresponding outer speech signals, laying the groundwork for a variety of new applications and interventions. This article is categorized under: Philosophy > Foundations of Cognitive Science Linguistics > Language in Mind and Brain Philosophy > Consciousness Philosophy > Psychological Capacities

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“…This number corresponds more closely to the self-reported frequencies of 260 participants as measured by the Nevada Inner Experience Questionnaire (NIEQ). The NIEQ suggests that the frequency of inner speech ranges from 38 to 74% with an average of 71% (Heavey et al, 2018). The Self-Talk Scale (STS) results in similar percentages, with average frequencies ranging from 54 to 67% in different studies (Brinthaupt et al, 2009;Brinthaupt and Kang, 2014;Heavey et al, 2018).…”

Section: Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The NIEQ suggests that the frequency of inner speech ranges from 38 to 74% with an average of 71% (Heavey et al, 2018). The Self-Talk Scale (STS) results in similar percentages, with average frequencies ranging from 54 to 67% in different studies (Brinthaupt et al, 2009;Brinthaupt and Kang, 2014;Heavey et al, 2018). Even those STS frequencies might be low.…”

Section: Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A voice without a mouth no more: The neurobiology of language and consciousness

Skipper¹

2021

Preprint

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Most research on the neurobiology of language ignores consciousness and vice versa. Here, language and inner speech are proposed to cause and sustain self-awareness and meta-self-awareness, i.e., extended consciousness. Converging empirical evidence supporting this proposal is reviewed and explanatory mechanisms are described. The latter are embedded in a ‘HOLISTIC’ model of the supporting neurobiology that involves a ‘core’ set of inner speech production regions that initiate conscious ‘overhearing’ of words. These have an affective quality deriving from activation of associated sensory, motor, and emotional representations, involving a largely unconscious dynamic ‘periphery’, distributed throughout the whole brain. This is the basis for inner conversations, involving ‘default mode’ activation and prefrontal and thalamic/brainstem selection of contextually relevant responses. Entrenched patterns of connectivity in these networks form the basis of diminished wellbeing and mental health problems. Overall, this framework constitutes a more parsimonious and complete account of the ‘neural correlates’ of extended consciousness than existing models that consider language peripherally if at all and provides a viable mechanistic account of psychotherapy.

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Measuring the Frequency of Inner-Experience Characteristics by Self-Report: The Nevada Inner Experience Questionnaire

Cited by 22 publications

References 34 publications

Measuring the Frequency of Inner-Experience Characteristics

Measuring the Frequency of Inner-Experience Characteristics

Inner speech

A voice without a mouth no more: The neurobiology of language and consciousness

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