On “Thinking Out Loud”
-a Meditation
Abstract
An observation about how so-called “thinking out loud” while problem solving is impossible for certain modes of thought.
Context
First, the context of my observation: I have been searching for jobs lately, in the attempt to line one up for when I graduate. I even found a junior Lisp position in Spain I’ve applied for (fingers crossed)! As the first response to my application, I received a programming assignment (by email) which amounted to devising and implementing a small algorithm (and analyzing its run-time).
Based on my readings about job interviews, it seems fairly common for interviewers to pose small problems and then invite you to “think out loud” while solving them, so that the interviewer can learn about your problem solving approaches. As I pondered “thinking out loud” while walking home today, I insighted:
Observation
Only a subset of my thoughts are verbal! When I came up with the algorithm to solve that programming assignment, I didn’t think in words: I half-envisioned, half-… Enkinned? Enkinesthesiad? Embodied? Half-envisioned, half-enkinned two arbitrary strings, threw the rough O(n2) brute search solution pattern at the strings as a first probe, then looked for useful properties of the strings in question, and then I found the desired properties by breaking the strings up and stacking their characters up against each other according to the found pattern – a bit like string Tetris. So at that point, I had the half-envisioned half-enkinned arbitrary strings, the resultant stacks to compare, and the sense of transformation from the former to the latter. Occasionally, during this process, some of my thoughts were verbal thoughts – mostly nudges reminding me of the problem statement. (Afterwards, since I had a solution, I simply wrote my solution down as a program.)
I can describe this well enough in retrospect, but the descriptions post factum are not the thoughts themselves. Giving those descriptions during the above process would have – most likely – either slowed and/or altered the thinking process. Slowed, because of mental bandwidth: the extra activity of not only vocalizing, but also of verbalizing the above by description, would have meant less focus on the actual problem solving. Altered, because bringing verbal activity into play might well have disrupted the above from unfolding by making me focus on a verbal-friendly solution approach instead.
Conclusion
Fundamentally, vocalization is a serial communication protocol. Thinking is a parallelized activity, and non-verbal thoughts, by their nature, can be hard to put into words. It follows that it’s not possible to “think out loud” for all thoughts, and that transmitting a simulation of parallelized thoughts over the serial protocol of vocalization is a non-trivial task.
It’s worth noting that the above-mentioned slow-down in interview situations by vocalizing is probably acceptable due to the incidental nature of the problems. But the alteration possibly involved might well defeat the purpose. As a final comment, I’m unsure how an interviewer may react if, when asked to “think out loud”, you responded by descriptions along the lines of those I gave above: I fairly seldom see, hear or read about non-verbal thinking. It makes sense, because the experience is much harder to discuss – but the omission might risk creating a faulty impression of thought space. Though, come to think of it, I don’t chance across much material on thinking either…
