Self-awareness deficits following loss of inner speech: dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's case study
Abstract
In her 2006 book "My Stroke of Insight" Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor relates her experience of suffering from a left hemispheric stroke caused by a congenital arteriovenous malformation which led to a loss of inner speech. Her phenomenological account strongly suggests that this impairment produced a global self-awareness deficit as well as more specific dysfunctions related to corporeal awareness, sense of individuality, retrieval of autobiographical memories, and self-conscious emotions. These are examined in details and corroborated by numerous excerpts from Taylor's book.
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Insular involvement in inner speech could represent increased self-awareness associated with inner speech.
“Thus, insular involvement in inner speech could represent increased self-awareness associated with inner speech (Morin & Hamper, 2012; Morin & Michaud, 2007; Morin, 2009).”
From Bridging phenomenology and neural mechanisms of inner speech: ALE meta-analysis on egocentricity and spontaneity in a dual-mechanistic framework (2023) · cites this paper as Morin, 2009
Cites
Functional anatomy of inner speech and auditory verbal imagery
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Private speech on an executive task: relations with task difficulty and task performance
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Inner speech and bilingual autobiographical memory: a Polish–Danish cross-cultural study
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Covert speech arrest induced by rTMS over both motor and nonmotor left hemisphere frontal sites
Aziz-Zadeh, L., Cattaneo, L., Rochat, M., & Rizzolatti, G. (2005) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/0898929054021157 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
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Inner Speech: Development, Cognitive Functions, Phenomenology, and Neurobiology
Alderson-Day, B., & Fernyhough, C. (2015) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/bul0000021 · Cited by 808 · see citing works
“Morin (2009b) interpreted Taylor’s loss of inner speech as causing an impairment of a sense of individuality and capacity to reflect on the self, consistent with his proposal that inner speech is involved in self-awareness and the creation of a sense of self (Morin, 2005).”
Reappraisal generation after acquired brain damage: The role of laterality and cognitive control
Salas, C. E., Gross, J. J., & Turnbull, O. H. (2014) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00242 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
A voice without a mouth no more: The neurobiology of language and consciousness
Skipper, J. I. (2022) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104772 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Pratts, J., Pobric, G., & Yao, B. (2023) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120399 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
“Impairments of inner speech are often associated with mental disorders such as auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia (Frith, 1987) and deficits in metacognition (Langland-Hassan et al., 2017; Morin, 2009).”
- Authors
- Morin, A.
- Affiliations
- Mount Royal University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Morin, Alain
- ORCID
- Morin, Alain
- Venue
- Consciousness and Cognition
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2009-06
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 524-529
- ISSN
- 1053-8100 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1997194953
- Cited by
- 83
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 5.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Consciousness and Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Identity, Memory, and Therapy
- Keywords
- inner speech, self-awareness, left hemisphere stroke, arteriovenous malformation, phenomenology, autobiographical memory, self-conscious emotions, hemispheric lateralization
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Agnosia, Awareness, Body Image, Dominance, Cerebral, Emotions, Female, Humans, Internal-External Control, Perceptual Distortion, Mental Recall, Self Concept, Speech, Thinking, Stroke
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