#Auditory hallucination series#

After listening to various rounds of sine-wave speech, participants were asked if and what words they heard.Īfter the first round, 75% of the individuals who commonly experience auditory hallucinations identified that they found speech present in the clips they were played, while less than half of participants in the other group came to the same conclusion. Subjects were played both intelligible and unintelligible (segments of intelligible audio with distortions layered over top) clips and were instructed to listen for and identify certain target sounds.

#Auditory hallucination series#

Sine-wave speech mimics the frequencies of normal speech through a series of robot-like 'beeps' and 'boops'. While their brains were being scanned for activity, participants listened to two 20-minute rounds of sine-wave speech. All were told the nature of the study, but not specifically what researchers were looking for. The study examined 12 participants who admitted to often hearing sounds that were not present and 17 who did not. The study extrapolated this theory to propose that maybe those who experience auditory hallucinations simply have brains that are more susceptible to this pattern-making. This theory is often used to explain why we sometimes see faces in inanimate objects – our brains are working so hard to interpret our surroundings that they may actually get ahead of reality. Researchers set out to test the predictive processing theory, a hypothesis that suggests the human brain is always attempting to make patterns out of what it encounters to better understand and predict the world around it.

The study, published in the neurology journal Brain, concentrated its efforts on individuals without psychosis to examine the hallucinations without the interference of medication or any other associated mental health conditions. A new study has taken to examining these types of individuals to uncover the hows and whys of this phenomenon. And while some individuals suffering from psychosis do experience auditory hallucinations, there are many who experience auditory hallucinations unrelated to any mental health issues. A smaller percentage of individuals deal with this on a routine basis, and the common conception is that the frequency of these experiences indicates some level of psychosis. In fact, it's estimated that as much as 15% of the general population has experienced some level of auditory hallucination, whether it be hearing your name or other distinct sounds that indicate something is there when it's not. It's an experience that you've probably had at least a few times you could have sworn someone called your name but when you turned around, no one was there.