Thinking aloud a tool for ideation

Speaking or saying out loud means to say what you are thinking, to verbalise aloud with your voice, as opposed to just thinking it. Although talking to ourselves out loud is sometimes frowned upon, hearing ourselves speak can help memory recall. Moreover, saying something out loud is not only a powerful cue to retrieve pre-existing ideas but can also help generate new ideas. The writer Heinrich Kleist of the Enlighenment era describes his habit of using speech as a thinking method and writes that active speech helps to turn the obscure thought into a whole idea. That is, it’s not thought that produces speech but, rather, speech is a mental process that in turn generates thought. Or, ideas come with speaking. Self-talk, then, or thinking aloud can be seen as an ideation tool. Reference: Kleist (1805). On the Gradual Production of Thoughts Whilst Speaking. Ed. and Trans. by David Constantine. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2004).