Inner speech plays an important role in self-regulation behavior, problem-solving, critical thinking, and future thinking.

There are five categories of inner experiences:

Not everyone is convinced that people think accurately. Philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel argues that people are prone to considerable introspective error under any condition.

Our motivations for inner speech are many and varied.

Most of us are aware of the internal dialogue – rather than a monologue - where we talk to someone inside our head. Often, that other voice is another aspect of ourselves.