Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T18:49:09.330Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Externalizing biases and hallucinations in source-monitoring, self-monitoring and signal detection studies: a meta-analytic review

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2013

M. L. Brookwell
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd, UK
R. P. Bentall
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
F. Varese*
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
*
*Address for correspondence: F. Varese, Ph.D., University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK. (Email: [email protected])

Abstract

Background

Cognitive models have postulated that auditory hallucinations arise from the misattribution of internally generated cognitive events to external sources. Several experimental paradigms have been developed to assess this externalizing bias in clinical and non-clinical hallucination-prone samples, including source-monitoring, verbal self-monitoring and auditory signal detection tasks. This meta-analysis aims to synthesize the wealth of empirical findings from these experimental studies.

Method

A database search was carried out for reports between January 1985 and March 2012. Additional studies were retrieved by contacting authors and screening references of eligible reports. Studies were considered eligible if they compared either (i) hallucinating and non-hallucinating patients with comparable diagnoses, or (ii) non-clinical hallucination-prone and non-prone participants using source-monitoring, verbal self-monitoring or signal detection tasks, or used correlational analyses to estimate comparable effects.

Results

The analysis included 15 clinical (240 hallucinating patients and 249 non-hallucinating patients) and nine non-clinical studies (171 hallucination-prone and 177 non-prone participants; 57 participants in a correlation study). Moderate-to-large summary effects were observed in both the clinical and analogue samples. Robust and significant effects were observed in source-monitoring and signal detection studies, but not in self-monitoring studies, possibly due to the small numbers of eligible studies in this subgroup. The use of emotionally valenced stimuli led to effects of similar magnitude to the use of neutral stimuli.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that externalizing biases are important cognitive underpinnings of hallucinatory experiences. Clinical interventions targeting these biases should be explored as possible treatments for clients with distressing voices.

Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aleman, A, Larøi, F (2008). Hallucinations: The Science of Idiosyncratic Perception. American Psychological Association: Washington, DC.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, P, Amaro, E, Fu, C, Williams, SCR, Brammer, MJ, Johns, LC, McGuire, PK (2007). Neural correlates of the misattribution of speech in schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry 190, 162169.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Allen, P, Freeman, D, Johns, L, McGuire, P (2006). Misattribution of self-generated speech in relation to hallucinatory proneness and delusional ideation in healthy volunteers. Schizophrenia Research 84, 281288.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Allen, P, Johns, LC, Fu, C, Broome, MR, Vythelingum, G, McGuire, PK (2004). Misattribution of speech in patients with hallucinations and delusions. Schizophrenia Research 69, 277287.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anselmetti, S, Cavallaro, R, Bechi, M, Angelone, SM, Ermoli, E, Cocchi, F, Smeraldi, E (2007). Psychopathological and neuropsychological correlates of source monitoring impairment in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Research 150, 5159.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arguedas, D, Stevenson, RJ, Langdon, R (2012). Source monitoring and olfactory hallucinations in schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 121, 936943.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barkus, E, Smallman, R, Royle, N, Barkus, C, Lewis, S, Rushe, T (2011). Auditory false perceptions are mediated by psychosis risk factors. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 16, 289302.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barkus, E, Stirling, J, Hopkins, R, McKie, S, Lewis, S (2007). Cognitive and neural processes in non-clinical auditory hallucinations. British Journal of Psychiatry Supplement 191, s76s81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bendall, S, Jackson, HJ, Hulbert, CA (2011). What self-generated speech is externally misattributed in psychosis? Testing three cognitive models in a first-episode sample. Scizophrenia Research 129, 3641.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentall, RP (1990). The illusion of reality: a review and integration of psychological research on hallucinations. Psychological Bulletin 107, 8295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bentall, RP (2003). Madness Explained: Psychosis and the Human Nature. Penguin Books Ltd: London.Google Scholar
Bentall, RP, Baker, GA, Havers, S (1991). Reality monitoring and psychotic hallucinations. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 30, 213220.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bentall, RP, Slade, P (1985 a). Reality testing and auditory hallucinations: a signal detection analysis. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 24, 159169.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bentall, RP, Slade, P (1985 b). Reliability of a scale measuring disposition towards hallucination: a brief report. Personality and Individual Differences 6, 527529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brébion, G, Amador, X, David, AS, Malaspina, D, Sharif, Z, Gorman, JM (2000). Positive symptomatology and source-monitoring failure in schizophrenia – an analysis of symptom-specific effects. Psychiatry Research 95, 119131.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brébion, G, Ohlsen, RI, Pilowsky, LS, David, AS (2008). Visual hallucinations in schizophrenia: confusion between imagination and perception. Neuropsychology 22, 383389.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brunelin, J, Combris, M, Poulet, E, Kallel, L, d'Amato, T, Dalery, J, Saoud, M (2006). Source monitoring deficits in hallucinating compared to non-hallucinating patients with schizophrenia. European Psychiatry 21, 259261.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, J (1988). Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioural Sciences. Erlbaum: Hillsdale, NJ.Google Scholar
Ditman, T, Kuperberg, GR (2005). A source-monitoring account of auditory verbal hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia. Harvard Review of Psychiatry 13, 280299.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duval, S, Tweedie, R (2000). Trim and fill: a simple funnel-plot-based method of testing and adjusting for publication bias in meta-analysis. Biometrics 56, 455463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Egger, M, Davey Smith, G, Schneider, M, Minder, C (1997). Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test. British Medical Journal 315, 629634.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Favrod, J, Vianin, P, Pomini, V, Mast, FV (2006). A first step towards cognitive remediation of voices: a case study. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy 35, 159163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinberg, I (1978). Efference copy and corollary discarge: implications for thinking and its disorders. Schizophrenia Bulletin 4, 636640.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, M, McCoy, K, Poole, JH, Vinogradov, S (2008). Self and other in schizophrenia: a cognitive neuroscience perspective. American Journal of Psychiatry 165, 14651472.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ford, JM, Mathalon, DH (2005). Corollary discharge dysfunction in schizophrenia: can it explain auditory hallucinations? International Journal of Psychophysiology 58, 179189.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frith, C (1992). The Cognitive Neuropsychiatry of Schizophrenia. Lawrence Erlbaum: Hove.Google Scholar
Frith, C, Done, DJ (1988). Towards a neuropsychology of schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry 153, 437443.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harvey, PD (1985). Reality monitoring in mania and schizophrenia: the association of thought disorder and performance. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 173, 6773.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hedges, LV (1981). Distribution theory for Glass's estimator of effect size and related estimators. Journal of Educational Statistics 6, 107128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higgins, JPT, Thompson, SG, Deeks, JJ, Altman, DG (2003). Measuring inconsistency in meta-analyses. British Medical Journal 327, 557560.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoffman, RE (1986). Verbal hallucinations and language production processes in schizophrenia. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 9, 503548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honig, A, Romme, M, Ensink, B, Escher, S, Pennings, M, DeVries, M (1998). Auditory hallucinations: a comparison between patients and nonpatients. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 186, 646651.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johns, LC, Gregg, L, Allen, P, McGuire, PK (2006). Impaired verbal self-monitoring in psychosis: effects of state, trait and diagnosis. Psychological Medicine 36, 465474.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johns, LC, Rossell, S, Frith, C, Ahmad, F, Hemsley, D, Kuipers, E, McGuire, PK (2001). Verbal self-monitoring and auditory verbal hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine 31, 705715.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, MK, Hashtroudi, S, Lindsay, DS (1993). Source monitoring. Psychological Bulletin 114, 328.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keefe, RSE, Arnold, MC, Bayen, UJ, Harvey, PD (1999). Source monitoring deficits in patients with schizoprenia; a multinomial modelling analysis. Psychological Medicine 29, 903914.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larøi, F, van der Linden, M, Marczewski, P (2004). The effects of emotional salience, cognitive effort and meta-cognitive beliefs on a reality monitoring task in hallucination-prone subjects. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 43, 221233.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moritz, S, Woodward, TS, Ruff, CC (2003). Source monitoring and memory confidence in schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine 33, 131139.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morrison, AP, Haddock, G (1997). Cognitive factors in source-monitoring and auditory hallucinations. Psychological Medicine 27, 669679.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morrison, AP, Renton, JP, Dunn, H, Williams, S, Bentall, RP (2003). Cognitive Therapy for Psychosis: A Formulation-Based Approach. Routledge: Hove.Google Scholar
Perona-Garcelán, S, Carrascoso-López, F, García-Montes, JM, Vallina-Fernández, O, Pérez-Álvarez, M, Ductor-Recuerda, MJ, Salas-Azcona, R, Cuevas-Yust, C, Gómez-Gómez, MT (2011). Depersonalization as a mediator in the relationship between self-focused attention and auditory hallucinations. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation 12, 535548.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rankin, PM, O'Carroll, PJ (1995). Reality discrimination, reality monitoring and disposition towards hallucination. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 34, 517528.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seal, ML, Crowe, SF, Cheung, P (1997). Deficits in source monitoring in subjects with auditory hallucinations may be due to differences in verbal intelligence and verbal memory. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 2, 273290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Serper, M, Dill, CA, Chang, N, Kot, T, Elliot, J (2005). Factorial structure of the hallucinatory experience: continuity of experience in psychotic and normal individuals. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 193, 265272.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Slade, P, Bentall, RP (1988). Sensory Deception: A Scientific Analysis of Hallucination. Croom Helm: London.Google Scholar
Stephane, M, Kuskowski, M, McClannahan, K, Sureus, C, Nelson, K (2010). Evaluation of speech misattribution bias in schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine 40, 741748.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Subramaniam, K, Luks, TL, Fisher, M, Simpson, GV, Nagarajan, S, Vinogradov, S (2012). Computerized cognitive training restores neural activity within the reality monitoring network in schizophrenia. Neuron 73, 842853.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van Os, J, Hanssen, M, Bijl, RV, Ravelli, A (2000). Strauss (1969) revisited: a psychosis continuum in the normal population? Schizophrenia Research 45, 1120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Os, J, Linscott, RJ, Myin-Germeys, I, Delespaul, P, Krabbendam, L (2009). A systematic review and meta-analysis of the psychosis continuum: evidence for a psychosis proneness–persistence–impairment model of psychotic disorder. Psychological Medicine 39, 179195.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Varese, F, Barkus, E, Bentall, RP (2011). Dissociative and metacognitive factors in hallucination-proneness when controlling for comorbid symptoms. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 16, 193217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Varese, F, Barkus, E, Bentall, RP (2012). Dissociation mediates the effect of childhood trauma on hallucination-proneness. Psychological Medicine 42, 10251036.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Varese, F, Bentall, RP (2011). The metacognitive beliefs account of hallucinatory experiences: a literature review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review 31, 850864.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vercammen, A, De Haan, EHF, Aleman, A (2008). Hearing a voice in the noise: auditory hallucinations and speech perception. Psychological Medicine 38, 11771184.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Versmissen, D, Janssen, I, Johns, LC, McGuire, PK, Drukker, M, Campo, J, Myin-Germeys, I, Van Os, J, Krabbendam, L (2007). Verbal self-monitoring in psychosis: a non-replication. Psychological Medicine 37, 569576.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Waters, F, Allen, P, Aleman, A, Fernyhough, C, Woodward, TS, Badcock, JC, Barkus, E, Johns, L, Varese, F, Menon, M, Vercammen, A, Larøi, F (2012 a). Auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia and nonschizophrenia populations: a review and integrated model of cognitive mechanisms. Schizophrenia Bulletin 38, 683693.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Waters, F, Woodward, TS, Allen, P, Aleman, A, Sommer, I (2012 b). Self-recognition deficits in schizophrenia patients with auditory hallucinations: a meta-analysis of the literature. Schizophrenia Bulletin 38, 741750.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Woodward, TS, Menon, M (2011). Considerations for analysis of source monitoring data when investigating hallucinations in schizophrenia research. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 261, 157164.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Woodward, TS, Menon, M, Whitman, JC (2007). Source monitoring biases and auditory hallucinations. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 12, 477494.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed