And I'd posit that you're wrong. :-) The reason? I do neither.
I do not have an internal monologue. I can construct one if I want to, but I do not have an "inner voice". When I type this, I do not prepare the sentences before I type them. They come to me as I type. I know exactly what I want to convey, but the sentence doesn't exist inside my head as a recognizable language or as any structure I can describe. The funny part? I don't think in neither English nor Norwegian (my native language), and I never have.
When it comes to imagery - I cannot construct a clear image of much at all in my head. I can, if I try hard, construct vague images of my mother, father, wife, daughter and very close friends in my head - but they're vague. Very, very vague. I have no problem recognizing people, though.
I do have fantastic spatial skills. If I walk through an area, I can see imagine it from different angles and positions - but not as a picture. It's abstract, without imagery. It's difficult to explain how it's processed in my head. I can spin things and know exactly how things will "look" from a different angle .. but I can't "visualize" it. This seems self-contradictory - but let me try to give a real life example. I visited Manila some 15 years ago. 10 years ago (5 years after being there) - I was going to show someone where I'd been on google maps. I had never looked at the area on a map before. I could just zoom in on the city, start from the airport, recognize the patterns from above, and zoom in on various things I had visited - switch to street view and show it from the angles I wanted. In seconds.
I can visit woods I've been to 20 years ago, and recognize where I am, and know the paths.
Still, no inner monologue. Not much mental imagery. Heck of a lot of connections though - but very very abstract.
I was saying more that "language" is just one way of processing, along with "visual" and "spatial" and perhaps innumerable others. It sounds like you have a spatial method of processing the world.
> I can spin things and know exactly how things will "look" from a different angle
This is essentially the spatial equivalent to the inner monologue of the language-oriented processor.
Interesting. When I've seen other describe this kind of spatial skill, I've always imagined it being with imagery. Which I don't have. I wouldn't be able to draw an image of it, except xkcd-like 2-d stuff.
I do not have an internal monologue. I can construct one if I want to, but I do not have an "inner voice". When I type this, I do not prepare the sentences before I type them. They come to me as I type. I know exactly what I want to convey, but the sentence doesn't exist inside my head as a recognizable language or as any structure I can describe. The funny part? I don't think in neither English nor Norwegian (my native language), and I never have.
When it comes to imagery - I cannot construct a clear image of much at all in my head. I can, if I try hard, construct vague images of my mother, father, wife, daughter and very close friends in my head - but they're vague. Very, very vague. I have no problem recognizing people, though.
I do have fantastic spatial skills. If I walk through an area, I can see imagine it from different angles and positions - but not as a picture. It's abstract, without imagery. It's difficult to explain how it's processed in my head. I can spin things and know exactly how things will "look" from a different angle .. but I can't "visualize" it. This seems self-contradictory - but let me try to give a real life example. I visited Manila some 15 years ago. 10 years ago (5 years after being there) - I was going to show someone where I'd been on google maps. I had never looked at the area on a map before. I could just zoom in on the city, start from the airport, recognize the patterns from above, and zoom in on various things I had visited - switch to street view and show it from the angles I wanted. In seconds.
I can visit woods I've been to 20 years ago, and recognize where I am, and know the paths.
Still, no inner monologue. Not much mental imagery. Heck of a lot of connections though - but very very abstract.