Humans rely on
language to a remarkable degree. Even non-verbal activities can be enhanced or
impaired by allowing or restricting speech or hearing. Does naming an object out loud affect how easily you can find that object? Yes and no, as Gary Lupyan of the
University of Wisconsin-Madison and Daniel Swingley of the University of
Pennsylvania found out.
Volunteers were
set the task of finding one specific picture out of a grid of images. Before
each trial, the subjects were shown a written label specifying what he or she
was to look for (a fork, violin, lemon, etc) and either instructed to read the
word aloud or to keep silent. That word was then replaced with the image grid
and participants were timed to see how long it took them to click on the
correct picture. Although everyone found the target pictures, speaking
out loud led to slightly quicker times and fewer errors.
Figure 1 A sample search trial from Experiments 1 and 2.
DOI:10.1080/17470218.2011.647039
In a second
experiment, subjects were asked to repeat the name of the object as they were
searching. Again, there was a slight improvement in time and accuracy with
talking aloud.
Finally,
participants were asked to find three examples of photographs of products one would find at
the supermarket (for example, ‘Poland Spring water’ could be
represented by a photo of gallon bottles, a photo of liter bottles and one of half
liter bottles). This means that the participant would not know exactly what to expect from the written description. Unlike with the other trials, speaking aloud not only did not improve search
times, but made subjects more likely to miss one of the pictures.
So, should you talk to yourself when you’re trying to find something? There
is a slight benefit to the practice if you’re looking for a single easily identifiable
object. On the other hand, if you’re not exactly sure what the object looks
like, speaking aloud may be more of a hindrance, possibly because it
artificially narrows your search parameters.
I think repeating the name of the object would definitely help me since I can get into really deep thought. I was once looking for the carton of milk I got out; found it in the oven. I once found my wallet in the microwave. Of course, I may just have a bigger problem, lol.
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