Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It

by Ethan Kross

A critical component of working memory is a neural system that specializes in managing verbal information. It’s called the phonological loop, but it’s easiest to understand it as the brain’s clearinghouse for everything related to words that occurs around us in the present. It has two parts: an “inner ear,” which allows us to retain words we’ve just heard for a few seconds; and an “inner voice,” which allows us to repeat words in our head as we do when we’re practicing a speech or memorizing a phone number or repeating a mantra. Our working memory relies on the phonological loop for keeping our linguistic neural pathways online so that we can function productively outside ourselves while also keeping our conversations going within. We develop this verbal doorway between our minds and the world in infancy, and as soon as it’s in place, it propels us toward other milestones of mental development. Indeed, the phonological loop goes well beyond the realm of responding to immediate situations. Our verbal development goes hand in hand with our emotional development. As toddlers, speaking to ourselves out loud helps us learn to control ourselves. In the early twentieth century, the Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky was one of the first people to explore the connection between language development and self-control.