Auditory hallucinations


Psychotic-like-experiences (PLE) are prodromal symptoms of psychosis. Their analysis not only has the advantage of early detection but also circumvents the disadvantage of confounding due to medication. These motivate the authors [1-2] to study
non-clinical PLE in this case auditory hallucinations (AH). Since current models propose a role for reality discrimination (RD) and intrusive thoughts in causing AH, these works aim to understand the interaction between these variables.

The paradigm of mood induction is employed to evaluate the role of negative affect and loneliness in modulating reality discrimination skills. Mood inductions methodology used in this study required the subjects to write for 5-8 minutes about a time when they felt lonely (to induce loneliness) or experienced academic failure (to induce sadness) while a control group wrote about their journey to the experiment (neutral). This task was immediately followed by a reality discrimination task that required detection of speech presented amidst white noise.

AH and intrusive thoughts are measured using Cardiff Anomalous Perception Scale (CAPS) and White Bear Suppression Inventory (WSBI) respectively. Correlation between these variables establishes a relationship. They observe that these factors do modulate reality discrimination. So these studies suggest that emotion can elicit a cognitive bias in psychosis.

[1] Smailes, David, Elizabeth Meins, and Charles Fernyhough. "The impact of negative affect on reality discrimination." Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry 45.3 (2014): 389-395.

[2] Smailes, David, Elizabeth Meins, and Charles Fernyhough. "Associations between intrusive thoughts, reality discrimination and hallucination-proneness in healthy young adults." Cognitive neuropsychiatry 20.1 (2015): 72-80.

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