The silent mind

At the University of Auckland last month, experts in psychology and cognitive neuroscience met to explore a phenomenon called anauralia.

- Charlotte Grimshaw

The conference organiser, Professor Tony Lambert, has defined a person with anauralia as one who lacks the auditory equivalent of a mind’s eye, and is unable to conjure up or hear sounds in the mind's inner ear. What does a silent mind tell experts about auditory cognition and the way the brain perceives sound?

Invited to speak on a conference panel, I did the best I could. Poet Serie Barford and I participated almost, you could say, as exhibits. Barford outlined the Pasifika concept of vā; I discussed composing dialogue and prose. Lambert and his impressive PhD students then launched into arcane exchanges with the audience about neuroimaging techniques and scans and flow.

Musicologist Nancy November added a brilliantly interesting angle to the panel when she described the ways Beethoven used his mind's inner ear to compose music after he'd become deaf.