Inner Speech

Glossary Ecological validity The degree to which the thoughts recorded in a study reflect the thoughts that actually occur in natural settings. Inner speech The activity of talking to oneself in silence. Left inferior frontal gyrus Also known as Broca’s area, the brain region that gets reliably activated during inner speech production. Predicativeness The syntactically compressed, condensed, abbreviated quality of inner speech. In inner speech, the speaker tends to only articulate the predicate, not the subject, for example, ‘hungry’ as opposed to ‘I am hungry.’ Private speech Self-directed speech emitted out loud by children for self-regulatory purposes. Rebound effect Rebound effect occurs when attempts at suppressing unwanted thoughts actually lead to experiencing them more often. Scaffolding Scaffolding is adult assistance only on those tasks that are beyond children’s skills. Self-regulation Consists in altering one’s behavior, resisting temptation, changing one’s mood, selecting a response from various options, and filtering irrelevant information; also includes setting immediate and distant goals, problemsolving, planning, and decision-making. Working memory System that keeps a small quantity of information in an active state for a short period of time. Zone of proximal development The difference between what children can and can not do by themselves.