>Q. If I use a voice recorder, do I have to listen back to what I’ve said?
No. I’m not going to pretend that I understand why but it seems that your mind just needs to know what the words are being recorded. You can, of course, listen to the recordings if you want to. Personally, I didn’t bother.
A priori it sounds plausible. Their explanation is that you're exploiting plasticity (neurons that fire together wire together), so the whole point of the exercise would be to ensure you're thinking the right thoughts. Moreover, we know minor differences in circumstances do have huge effects on how we think in a given moment.
To the extent the advice is valid though, I imagine there's some significant set of people for whom it won't work. Voice teachers and math professors have a similar task in coming up with metaphors and situations to provoke the right thought patterns and give new ideas a place to take hold, and a defining characteristic of both of those professions is that people are very heterogeneous and aren't usually amenable to a one-size-fits-all metaphor.
>Q. If I use a voice recorder, do I have to listen back to what I’ve said? No. I’m not going to pretend that I understand why but it seems that your mind just needs to know what the words are being recorded. You can, of course, listen to the recordings if you want to. Personally, I didn’t bother.