Personal Science Week - 240321 Internal Monologue
Internal monologue testing, a potassium diet, Lyme and more
About 4% of us are unable to conjure up images of people or objects when we're not looking at them. We wrote about perception and consciousness in PS Week 230309 and synesthesia in PS Week 230223.
This week we’ll look at some simple tests to quantify your internal monologue.
Do you "talk" to yourself when you're thinking? Something like 50% of us do that almost all the time, but some people never do. For people without an “inner monologue”, the thoughts just come ... from somewhere. Often these people can be a little too direct and blurt out whatever they're thinking. Brain and mouth are directly connected. They have no filter.
Like many internal perception issues, it can be difficult to notice because you’re you and your own brain seems normal. But fortunately various easy-to-use tests have been developed that can help us figure out how different we are.
Close your eyes and think of a red star. On the following scale, what number best represents the image you have in your head?
For me, the answer is clearly #6. Although I can't literally "see" the red star when my eyes are closed (like some people), I can definitely imagine it and I can flip its color or shape all in my head.
A more comprehensive (but still short) test is the VVID Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire. Here's my score:
In other words, it appears I’m like a lot of people. It’s hard for me to imagine how it could be any different. (See @joshwalkos for an 20-minute X interview with a perfectly normal-seeming person who has no inner monologue)
CBC News “What it's like living without an inner monologue”, quotes Russell Hurlburt, a psychology professor at the University of Nevada on “The 5 main ways of thinking”:
Inner speaking/ inner monologue - Ex. talking to yourself, hearing your voice or someone else or audibly recalling a phone number.
Inner seeing/ visual imagery - Thoughts with a visual symbol. Ex. picturing a memory or a place you wish you lived.
Feelings - A conscious experience of emotional process. Ex. feeling sad after the death of a loved one.
Unsymbolized thinking - No word or image associated with thoughts. Ex. pouring your morning coffee without telling yourself to.
Sensory awareness- Paying attention to a sensory aspect of the environment for an unimportant reason. Ex. hearing someone talk but seeing the light reflecting off their glasses.
I admit I’m mostly that first one, inner monologue, at least when I’m doing concentrated thinking about a specific issue. I do the other types of thinking from time to time as well, like most people.
Read more details and references in this recent article in the Guardian.
Personal Scientist of the Week
Our friend Alex Chernavsky at Potassium Weight-Loss Experiment ran a six month self-experiment that appears to show him losing about 4 pounds simply by supplementing his diet with two heaping teaspoons of potassium chloride (KCI) in the form of Nu-Salt, a sodium-free substitute available in most supermarkets.
Unfortunately the KCI came with some unpleasant side effects, but his experience and that of others conducting the same experiment seems to conclude that there is a dose-dependent effect. Alex publishes all his data and is easy to contact if you'd like to learn more. Or follow him on X and read the dozens of comments from others who watched his experiment.
Links worth your time
Lyme Disease
Researchers at MIT and University of Helsinki did a genome wide association study on half a million people to discover a unique protein in human sweat that appears to ward off the microbe responsible for Lyme disease. The secretoglobin is produced by a gene called SCGB1D2 (rs2232950). In most people this is a 'C', where it significantly inhibits the growth of Borrelia burgdorferi but not the 40% of the population with a 'T'. You can click here to see 23andme results for this variant. FWIW I'm a 'C' and no I've never had Lyme. (Paid subscribers can see our Unpopular Science issue with facts about Lyme you should probably keep quiet).
Glucose
Measuring your glucose tolerance the old-fashioned way? Here’s an alternative :
The Kraft test goes beyond the standard OGTT in two ways:
It measures insulin along with glucose
Instead of only two hours, the test is extended to five hours
With these two small changes, the Kraft test gives you a staggering amount of information you won’t get from the standard OGTT.
Why’s it called the Kraft test? Well, the man who created it was Joseph Kraft, MD. It can also be called an “oral glucose tolerance test with insulin assay,” but in the low carb community, it’s usually referred to as the Kraft test, to honor the man whose work was some of the earliest in uncovering the detrimental effects of chronically high insulin
To do this well, you’d need a way to measure blood insulin. I still prefer SiPhox, which at $95 is the best at-home blood test.
2D-4D Digit Ratio
Have you heard about the ratio between the hands' second to the fourth finger (2D:4D)? Supposedly it relates to the amount of prenatal testosterone and is a good predictor of a whole bunch of "male" vs. "female" traits. A recent meta-analysis of 54 studies concludes that's unlikely. Never say never, but there is enough poor science in the most well-promoted studies that you may want to tone down any provocative ideas you've heard. There's not even proof that testosterone in amniotic fluid levels makes a difference in digit lengths.
Microplastics
Boil your water to get rid of microplastics? A researcher’s experiments demonstrates a simple way to prevent ingesting them. (Paid subscribers can read our Unpopular Science post about why plastic recycling doesn’t work anyway).
About Personal Science
Personal science is our word for the use of scientific techniques for personal, rather than professional reasons. Personal scientists are those of us who are curious about the world around us which we approach with an open mind. We’re also skeptical, so we tend not to believe things just because we read them somewhere or because a highly-credentialed “expert” says so. We prefer as much as possible to run our own experiments because even if a well-studied phenomenon works in lots of people, it only matters to you if it works in you.
Paid subscribers have access to our Unpopular Science series, including our most recent post about colleges and universities. Not recommended for close-minded people.
We’ve been publishing weekly now for several years, so new subscribers may want to browse our older posts, such as 230330 Free Resources, or check one of our up-to-date Personal Science Guides, such as our most recent Guide to Artificial Intelligence with tips for personal scientists.
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BTW: I had a Lyme disease and I am "C".
But what was strange: it was not from a tick but from a gadfly. I consulted it with researchers from https://www.paru.cas.cz/en/sections/biology-of-disease-vectors/laboratory-of-molecular-biology-of-ticks/ which are known for pretty extensive research on topic and they were sceptical (ticks need more time for engage their masking mechanism to invade immune system). Still, my symptoms, laboratory results, even cure, were typical for a Lyme disease.