Jaynes asserted a global recession of audio consciousness generating voices over time. If you experience aphantasia and are reading this, your visual consciousness state (a retraction of creating in mind visual objects) may be related to a mind devoid of echoic recall (a retraction of in mind audio objects). Today this is estimated to be nearly 60% of sampled individuals for audio and <2% for images.
What do you mean about echoic recall? Do you mean 60% of sampled individuals can't remember sounds that they hear, or imaginging them? That sounds unbelievable to me: people can remember songs and voices. If you ask someone to imagine Donald Trump's voice saying "I like dealing with the Ferengi--they are sharp traders", they can probably do it, even without Trump having to ever actually have said that.
This is the same reaction people have when I say I can't see loved ones, in mind. Or an apple. I haven't found anyone with absolute Aphantasia (no images, ever) that can hear things in mind as well. That would include voices or songs.
And yes, echoic recall is the ability to "re-hear" something in mind.
There was a study in the 1800s that first explored this. That 40% of people hear things in mind came from that, as well as subsequent studies recently talking about Aphantasia exploring and measuring the prevalence in the population.
I know that aphantasia exists (I know a famous mathematician who has it) but I had expected it to be fairly uncommon, like color blindness. Soo I was surprised by the percentages mentioned.
