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Mental imagery and perception in hallucination-prone individuals
A Aleman1, M R Nieuwenstein, K B Böcker
1Department of Psychonomics and Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
|February 24, 2001
Summary
Individuals prone to hallucinations report more vivid mental images but show similar behavioral performance in imagery and perception tasks. This suggests subjective vividness doesn't equate to altered sensory processing in hallucination-proneness.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Psychopathology
Background:
- Hallucination-proneness is associated with altered sensory experiences.
- The relationship between subjective vividness of mental imagery and objective perceptual processing in hallucination-prone individuals requires further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether individuals with higher hallucination-proneness exhibit diminished differences between mental imagery and perceptual performance.
- To explore the link between subjective vividness of mental imagery and objective measures of imagery and perception.
Main Methods:
- College students were screened for hallucination-proneness using the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS).
- Participants completed self-report measures of imagery vividness.
- Behavioral tasks assessed visual and auditory imagery and perception.
Main Results:
- A replication of previous findings showed higher self-reported imagery vividness in the hallucination-prone group.
- No significant differences were found between groups on five of six behavioral imagery-perception comparisons.
- One visual task indicated larger imagery-perception differences in hallucination-prone individuals.
Conclusions:
- A dissociation exists between subjective experience (vividness) and objective information processing in hallucination-proneness.
- Increased perceptual characteristics of mental images are unlikely to explain hallucination-proneness.
- Cognitive processes related to reality discrimination may be more critical than sensory vividness at the information processing level.