A growing body of evidence shows that theta-band (4-7Hz) activity in the auditory cortex phase-locks to the rhythm of overt speech. But does theta activity in the auditory cortex also phase-lock to inner speech? We explored this question with EEG while participants silently read direct (e.g., Mary said: “This dress is lovely!”) and indirect speech quotes (e.g., Mary said that the dress was lovely). Previous research established that direct (vs. indirect) quote reading elicits vivid inner speech which shares temporal properties with overt speech behaviourally (in reading patterns) and activates cortical areas for voice processing. In the present study, we found that direct (vs. indirect) quote reading was associated with increased theta phase-locking at 250-500 ms in EEG post-sentence presentation, with its sources estimated in the speech processing network. A separate eye-tracking experiment of the reading paradigm confirmed that the increased theta phase-locking in direct quote reading could not be attributed to eye movement patterns and may reflect the onset of inner speech. The findings provide novel evidence for a functional role of theta activity in reading-induced inner speech.

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