--- abstract: |- It has been suggested recently that self-awareness is cognitively mediated by inner speech and that this hypothesis could be tested by using the private speech paradigm, This paper describes a study in which the creation of a state of self-awareness was attempted in children to test the viability of a research strategy based on private speech and used to explore the hypothesis of a link between self-awareness and inner speech, and to test directly this hypothesis by comparing the incidence of private speech in self-aware and control conditions. 32 children were asked to evaluate the attractiveness of pictures when in front of a mirror (a widely used self-focusing stimulus) and with no mirror. Reliably more favorable ratings of the images were predicted presuming intensification of affects in self-awareness. Private speech was recorded, with the prediction of a more important incidence of "introspective" self-verbalizations (for example, "Wow! I really like this picture!") in the self-aware condition. None of these outcomes were obtained. Results are discussed in terms of previous attempts to manipulate self-awareness in children. It is suggested that the private speech paradigm does not appear to be a promising strategy when inner speech and self-awareness are considered altloc: [] chapter: ~ commentary: ~ commref: ~ confdates: ~ conference: ~ confloc: ~ contact_email: ~ creators_id: [] creators_name: - family: Morin given: Alain honourific: '' lineage: '' date: 1991 date_type: published datestamp: 2002-10-28 department: ~ dir: disk0/00/00/25/61 edit_lock_since: ~ edit_lock_until: ~ edit_lock_user: ~ editors_id: [] editors_name: [] eprint_status: archive eprintid: 2561 fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png;/2561/1/Privatespeech.pdf full_text_status: public importid: ~ institution: ~ isbn: ~ ispublished: pub issn: ~ item_issues_comment: [] item_issues_count: 0 item_issues_description: [] item_issues_id: [] item_issues_reported_by: [] item_issues_resolved_by: [] item_issues_status: [] item_issues_timestamp: [] item_issues_type: [] keywords: ~ lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:55:05 latitude: ~ longitude: ~ metadata_visibility: show note: ~ number: ~ pagerange: 1299-1306 pubdom: FALSE publication: Psychological Reports publisher: ~ refereed: TRUE referencetext: ~ relation_type: [] relation_uri: [] reportno: ~ rev_number: 10 series: ~ source: ~ status_changed: 2007-09-12 16:45:49 subjects: - cog-psy succeeds: ~ suggestions: ~ sword_depositor: ~ sword_slug: ~ thesistype: ~ title: Self-awareness and "introspective" private speech in 6-year-old children. type: journalp userid: 3466 volume: 68