what i've noticed about talking aloud (more broadly than just with ntps) is that it seems like it follows some basic criteria. extroversion, impulsiveness, excitement, and Fe. the act of sharing meanings is grounding because you get to emerge a values context that helps provide the social reality part of what you are trying to explore. the excitement part is just spewing out networks of hunches (collusions) that you're afraid to lose and want to capture by a kind of blurting, racing description. i include extroversion because i just mean a state of active, unreflective creativity. it uses the talk system to work through the problem, which channels your creative energies through different resources, helping you mediate your resources in a different way (that is probably necessary for Fe users at times and a big aspect of how we predict something, make hypotheses, run simulations).
it's more about context, i think, more for organizing the conditions than it is for solving the puzzle. so it's good when the puzzle has become figuring out what the puzzle is rather than simply acting or moving forward most directly within the more narrow confines that have emerged in your own thinking.
this process is also much of why i enjoy spending time with ntps. i have the easiest time engaging in simulation games. still learning, i think on all sides, how to turn that into tangible production processes for all parties. but it helps keep the story going, refining it, reshaping it, and remembering the distributed motives that i cannot sufficiently hold within myself.