For those who do inner monologue - I worry about telling you about this. It might make you wish you didn't ever realize it. So.. spoiler in the next sentence. When you start talking in your head, pay attention to your vocal cords and the area around them... Notice anything? They're probably moving like they would if you were actually talking out loud. Have you ever noticed how you tried to talk really fast in your head but seem to always get limited and it feels weirdly physical that you can't talk even faster? It's because you can't actually speak that fast in real life - thus you're limited because your mechanisms for talking are actually moving at the rate you're speaking - but if you can't speak fast then you can't think fast either really. It's usually something you'll casually notice but ignore... and then later you'll really notice it every time you think. Similar to floaters - always there but only when you're tired or looking at a blue sky do you really notice and get upset over it.
Sometimes I find myself speaking at an unreal speed in my head (but everything is clear and distinct - something that doesn't happen when people talk fast, things get slurred) but it's because I suppressed the vocal portion of my physical movements for just a moment. It's weirdly surreal. I think, "Is this how fast I would talk if I wasn't physically limited?" To think faster, I usually skip words in my inner monologue because the physical part always gets in the way. To someone listening in, it'd sound weird. And I always worry that people can tell what I'm thinking because I know my body is actually moving when I speak - it's sometimes like people pick up on it. I think I pick up on it too here and there... hard to say.
I definitely have an inner monologue but my vocal cords don't move when I'm thinking or reading (this is called subvocalization [0]). There is a significant population of people that don't do it much/at all and you can be taught to suppress it.
My internal monologue doesn't seem to be constrained by my speaking speed, which aligns with your experience of being able to think very quickly when suppressing subvocalization.
Regarding your worries about people being able to tell: most of the time, the muscle movements involved in subvocalization are so small that they're not possible to see without the aid of machines [1] (though the speaker can often feel them, as you report).
Interesting - while I can make myself do the ‘silent talking’ thing, my normal internal monologue is usually disconnected from my movements basically completely.
It’s pretty normal for me to be thinking ahead or of other things to say while speaking at the same time. I do some music gigs here and there, and if I know a song well enough, I find my mind drifting and monologuing on random observations about the venue, or people around me, or even something completely random, while also singing the normal words to the song and playing guitar!
I’m not sure who is more “normal”, or if there even is a “normal” here!
I would have just considered that habit. If you are familiar enough with something you don't need to consciously think while you do it, whether it's singing or just going about your day.
I think your thoughts are right. I think once we have good neural interfaces, interpersonal communication will become much, much faster for some people. Both linguistic and non-linguistic (symbolic, abstract, etc.).
I think there will be certain superusers who start using them from a very young age and will be able to communicate and transform information with incredible density and clarity. I'm not totally sure how useful that'd actually be for conversing or teaching, but for writing, programming, and creating art, I bet it'll be very significant.
Chiming in as someone who experiences an inner monologue, but does not subvocalize while either thinking or reading. I don't think one implies the other.
I was taught to read without subvocalizing and I think I am a faster reader for it. I visually process "chunks" of text and hop from chunk to chunk. My SO subvocalizes and is a noticeably slower reader.
I often recite rants in my head like that, but I definitely don't do it for everything. I figure my body is responding to things I am more emotionally charged about by preparing to speak. Sometimes I even do start speaking quietly to myself if I'm especially worked up - but I also generally take that as a que that I need to focus on relaxing.
Sometimes I find myself speaking at an unreal speed in my head (but everything is clear and distinct - something that doesn't happen when people talk fast, things get slurred) but it's because I suppressed the vocal portion of my physical movements for just a moment. It's weirdly surreal. I think, "Is this how fast I would talk if I wasn't physically limited?" To think faster, I usually skip words in my inner monologue because the physical part always gets in the way. To someone listening in, it'd sound weird. And I always worry that people can tell what I'm thinking because I know my body is actually moving when I speak - it's sometimes like people pick up on it. I think I pick up on it too here and there... hard to say.