Excellent testbed!
I had a hypothesis about my use of "internal speech" and used that game to give myself a nominal task to see if I heard any internal speech while engaging with it (and if so with what content). Prior to playing with the game, I had a sense that I rarely use elaborate and intelligible "internal speech" except in the context of high impact communication, as when rehearsing a speech for an audience, planning to write prose, retrospectively mulling over an emotionally fraught conversation, or trying to figure out what I...
Before language, people must have thought without words. I often have the impression that I have a thought fully-formed in my head, yet I wait to listen to it unfold in words before moving on to the next thought. Perhaps I could think much faster if I weren't addicted to words.
Has anyone developed techniques for thinking without words?
This would have a little in common with Buddhist practices of emptying your mind, but wouldn't be the same thing. For one thing, Buddhists also try to empty their minds of images. More importantly, they are trying not to think, while I'm trying to think - just not unpack everything into words.