Verbalized Inner Speech and the Expressiveness of Self-Consciousness.

The relevance of inner speech for psychological life has been recognized in the literature, and several scales and questionnaires have provided evidence. However, evidence coming from direct observation of the phenomena is still rare. The aim of this study was to specify modes of verbalized inner speech as expression of self-consciousness (reflexivity or internal conversation). Eighteen adults (between 19 and 34 years old) were instructed to express aloud their thinking during a task with the Brazilian version of the Raven Progressive Matrices Test. Participants' thinking-aloud verbalizations were submitted to a qualitative analysis based on three reflexive steps of semiotic-phenomenology: description, reduction, and interpretation. Description revealed a structure of verbalized inner speech organized on the basis of three main typifications: visual description, logical reasoning, and dialogue. Reduction recognized dialogical relations as an essential feature underlying verbalized inner speech, characterized by two different aspects of information and communication. Interpretation indicated that an accurate account of the conscious expression of dialogical relations requires understanding the communicative process as a logical relationship with an emphasis on its pragmatic function. The conscious experience of reflexivity is disclosed as both temporal (a marked presence) and spatial (marked as an absence). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]