Talking is one of many forms of processing. I've had similar experiences while drafting an e-mail outlining the problem and everything I've tried to fix it. Hundreds of such e-mails have never been sent because in the process of writing things out, I realize a new attempt.
I have a coworker who processes everything externally. He even reads e-mail out loud to himself. He doesn't gain the same...clarity...that people are talking about in this thread.
So I really think it's a question of walking yourself through everything you know about the problem and everything you've tried. Regardless of whether it's verbal or not.
I have an agreement with my thesis advisor in which I will send him many emails as I think through an issue, and he doesn't have to read them carefully (or at all). I will clearly mark the parts that he needs to answer (like the time of the next meeting or other silly things), and if I do need an answer to a question I might send an email just with it.
Then, when it is time for us to meet, all that writing has helped the ideas solidify in my head enough for it to be very easy to explain to him what I'm trying to doand how, and then his comments can be very useful. Before we arranged this I'd block for days without managing to think some detail through, but now I just start writing him an email about the issue and by the end of the email I usually have an idea as to how can I solve it.
On a related note, hand gestures are usually for the benefit of the speaker, not the audience, for a very similar reason. I tried holding hands with a girl during a classroom discussion once, and I couldn't even begin to speak without bringing my hands out.
I talk to myself a lot. I was an only child, so I never really got socialized against it, and often didn't have anyone else present to talk to. However, this usually happens when I'm idly woolgathering, not when I'm working on a problem. Problems require writing!
Another autoconversing only child here. In my consistent experience, the best thing I can do to understand something more fully is to explain it to someone else - even if that 'someone else' is actually myself. :)
I tend to replay events from earlier in the day or the day before in my head, and sometimes I find myself responding or criticizing my actions verbally. It's usually while traveling to and from work, but it's mildly embarrassing when I've arrived at my destination and mumble something.
Good article until it mentioned Jill Bolte, who gave one of the worst psuedo-scientific TED Talks I can recall. It relied on erroneous analogies such as 'the left brain is a serial processor, the right brain is a parallel processor' (the whole brain is massively parallel, everywhere) and ignores facts such as the right brain is capable of learning and taking over language processing in children who have had portions of their left brain removed (to treat epilepsy). If you talk about integration of sensory information and awareness, you want to talk about specific brain systems and cortical columns, NOT make monolithic statements about left brain vs. right brain that get overgeneralized into the silly notion of inaccurately labelling people 'left brain' or 'right brain'.
I talk to myself all the time when working through programming problems. (And even some other types of problems.) I remember being told at a very young age that this was some kind of sign of insanity and should be avoided. I ignored that advice and have been reaping the rewards ever since.
This is true but I find actually having to speak the words out loud forces me to reveal implicit assumptions I was making behind my own back. Drawing pictures doesn't always tease this out.
Often the eureka moment occurs when I realise that my hidden assumption just makes no sense at all and I feel stupid but elated at the same time.
Personally I do need someone to be there otherwise my mind carries on hiding things behind my back.
I don't think my mind and me are on the same team sometimes :)
An AI researcher (Patrick Henry Winston) once mentioned that psychologists and AI researchers kept finding that intelligence was buried in two places: our visual and linguistics systems.
This article closely describes how it works with me many times..after being stuck in some problem for a certain amount of time I feel the need to get another perspective on tackling it..and then just midway while explaining or after explaining to someone else the answer seems so obvious that I feel dumb for not being able to get it sooner. Now I know its not just me.
Yes, that has happened to be me a lot of times since I do a lot of support work. The high-level, low-level symptoms, the trigger of the problem, the root cause of the issue and the facts/opinion of the support problem all get jumbled up. I have tried in the past to articulate the issue at hand and seperate the facts, symptoms, opinions, end-user experience, but nothing helps better then to try to find the answer from someone else..and then realzing what you should/could have done extra before they even utter a word...
Another reason why I have to work alone, from home. I really just have to pace around and talk out loud to myself sometimes. Sometimes I conduct all-hands meetings this way - which is easy because I'm the only person in my company.
I can get a bit foul mouthed at times, when talking to recalcitrant equipment... err, myself. I have to watch that, a bit, as other people can come to think I have "attitude", particularly in today's HR-dominated "three monkeys" culture. But it works for me -- vents a bit of frustration and gets me motivated to make useful changes when I might otherwise hesitate and get lost in an overcomplexity of "what-if's".
I have a coworker who processes everything externally. He even reads e-mail out loud to himself. He doesn't gain the same...clarity...that people are talking about in this thread.
So I really think it's a question of walking yourself through everything you know about the problem and everything you've tried. Regardless of whether it's verbal or not.