Hallucinations and Modality-Specific Biases
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Reality Monitoring Biases in Visual and Auditory Hallucinations
IRAS ID
232753
Contact name
Rob Dudley
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 3 months, 31 days
Research summary
Auditory hallucinations are experienced by 60-80% of psychosis patients, while visual hallucinations are experienced by 20-30% of psychosis patients. Around two-thirds of psychosis patients who report auditory hallucinations do not experience any other type of hallucination, with around one-third experiencing visual hallucinations. It is rare, therefore, for psychosis patients to report visual hallucinations in the absence of auditory hallucinations. This suggests that many of the same processes are involved in both auditory and visual hallucinations. However, the fact that some patients experience hallucinations in only one modality suggest that some processes are uniquely involved in auditory hallucinations and other processes are uniquely involved in visual hallucinations. The aim of this study is to examine associations between performance on four tasks and the presence of auditory and visual hallucinations in a sample of psychosis patients. Two of the tasks involve participants discriminating between internal, self-generated verbal material and external, non-self-generated verbal material. The other two tasks involve discriminating between internal, self-generated visual imagery and external, non-self-generated images. We predict that performance on the auditory tasks will be more strongly related to the presence of auditory (rather than visual) hallucinations, and conversely, that performance on the visual tasks will be more strongly related to the presence of visual (rather than auditory) hallucinations. The results of this study will help us to gain a better understanding of the processes that cause auditory and visual hallucinations, which may enable us to develop more effective treatments for these symptoms.
REC name
London - City & East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/0262
Date of REC Opinion
18 Apr 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion