Non-voice-like sounds are different though. After 60 or 70 hours of hypomanic insomnia, I’ll sometimes hear a sequence of chimes that sound more real than real, like the vibrations of an ideal Platonic crystal. That’s worse, really – they make we want to stay moving and follow them – at least the un-voices make it quite clear that it’s time to take a mood stabilizer and some melatonin and go to sleep.

My new question, more specifically RE the study, would be: to what extent does the very fact that the subjects were reading limericks – and rhyming poetry more generally – affect the sensory register of their imagination? If so, does the artificial/conventional as opposed to natural source of their intuition about how to read it affect the accent drift between their audible and imaginary voices?

I could easily imagine that internal speech rooted in a trained practice of reading-poetry, probably based on reading it aloud as children, would be more likely to closely resemble one’s spoken accent.

I can tell you from my experience in a pre-medicated bipolar condition that the difference is shocking. Your deliberate inner voice is what you’ve heard all your life. A non-deliberate voice has an almost electronic non-acoustic and unfamiliar voice from what seems to be a specific part of your brain as if it has an actual location inside your skull. It says things you’re not thinking and it doesn’t always make grammatical sense.

Me?  I’m odd, I use both.

I’ve developed a sort of blending of speech patterns (though not my accent, which is upper-class Western New York and nearly as neutral US as possible) to match who I’m talking to because the people I’ve associated with have always been quite diverse, and I’ve lived and blended in in NY, California, Ontario, and Thailand (though obviously I didn’t blend in there).

So when I say something British, it’s only in a context where it won’t sound terribly odd to whoever I’m talking to, and you can’t really get away with “wanker” or “tosser” but there are plenty you can. You just have to be careful :) It can make you sound subtly classier (to other Americans) if you adopt some British speech patterns (though I’m not sure the Misfits characters will help you there).

I suppose it happens if I’m writing (and thinking about what I’m writing instead of just spewing nonsense) but I can’t tell. I’m doing it now as I write, but that’s because we’re talking about it :)

I was a bit thrown by Mark, Xeni, and Rob (although in his case it’s probably because I didn’t realize he was English until I heard his voice). I’ve been reading BB for years but had somehow managed to never hear Mark or Xeni’s voice until I met them at the BB meetup last summer. As NathanHornby said, once I heard their voices and talked to them (and, now, after listening to so much Gweek) I read the things they write differently – in Mark’s case especially it enhances his writing imagining it in his somewhat eccentric and joyful-sounding voice :)

But, I think everyone imagines themselves sounding different than they do in recordings, don’t they?

Possibly related weird effect: When I watch a movie performed in a language I don’t understand with English subtitles, I find myself remembering it as though the actors were speaking English — even transferring the pitch and timbre of their voices into English in my head. I don’t remember it like a recording — more like an impression — but still, I genuinely have trouble remembering whether a movie was subtitled or not.

P.S. I’m surprised that the question of “soda,” “pop” or “coke” would be one of those that you can’t remember what you do when you’re not thinking about it. To me, it’s more like asking whether I write with my left hand or my right hand — the answer is obvious, and trying to do it the other way feels intensely awkward and wrong. (I say “soda.”)

Quote:  I don’t think “That’s funny isn’t it”, but “That’s funny, innit?”
Then the smug duo proceeded to pelt the great round-headed one with metaphorical eggs and tomatoes.
Well who’s laughing now, bitches?

“What does that character’s voice sound like in your head?”

“What do you mean?” Dot, Dot Dot.