For example, I don't talk to myself in "monologue". But I can close my eyes or stare at the screen and visualize the solutions. The words that I usually tell myself during that are "what?", "why?", "strange!", "really",... not a monologue or sentences.
Anyway, a surprising related observation is that rubber ducking by describing the problem to quiet listener still often helps me, which suggests that internal chain of thought makes intuitive shortcuts that sometimes are counter productive, while talking to another person creates subconscious pressure to make the thoughts fully complete.
I feel like I'm the opposite, where most of my thinking is done in inner English, which feels slow. I.e. as opposed to instantly realizing the result of deep subconscious processing or something, I usually go the slow language way, if you get what I mean.
1. Intuitive thinking
2. Language based internal monologue
3. Written scratchpad
4. Explaining the problem to another person until they understand it (rubber ducking)
It does have an enormous mountain of downsides, though.
I couldn’t do that. I have no insight into my thought processes whatsoever. There are no semantic (or any other) processes to witness. It’s complete crickets at all times…
My wife is the opposite - constant chatter in her head. And she can trace every thought exactly. (No idea how people like her can focus or even function!)