Schizophrenia Bulletin
June 19, 2020
Ben Alderson‐day, Angela Woods, Peter Moseley et al.
59 citations
Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) often become personified, but little is known about how this happens. In interviews with 40 early psychosis service users, 40% reported complex personification of their voices. Personified voices were more likely to be experienced as conversational and companionable, but not as commanding or trauma-related. The duration of voice-hearing or age at onset did not predict personification. The findings suggest that personification is linked to the social affordances of voices—their capacity for conversation and companionship—rather than their threatening or commanding qualities.
Psychological medicine
June 1, 2023
Ben Alderson-Day, Peter Moseley, Kaja Mitrenga et al.
19 citations
Felt presence—the sense that someone else is nearby when no one is there—occurs across neurology, bereavement, psychosis, hypnagogic states, solo sports, and spiritual experiences, but systematic comparisons are rare. Three online surveys compared felt presence in people with psychosis or voice-hearing (75 participants), spiritualist believers (47 participants), and endurance/solo athletes (84 participants). Hierarchical linear regression showed that a general tendency toward hallucinations predicted felt presence frequency in all groups; paranoia and female gender were additional predictors in the psychosis sample. Qualitative analysis revealed shared features, especially immersive states, across contexts. The findings support a unitary model of felt presence, suggesting common underlying mechanisms.
Schizophrenia bulletin
September 1, 2022
Peter Moseley, Adam Powell, Angela Woods et al.
15 citations
Voice-hearing in people with psychosis and in nonclinical spiritualist communities shows important similarities and differences. Nonclinical voice-hearers report less distress and more control over their voices, consistent with prior findings. They also often integrate multiple sensory modalities into a single entity, experience high levels of associated visual imagery, and perceive voices in locations that differ in relation to perceptual boundaries. Most nonclinical voice-hearers reported hearing voices before encountering spiritualism, indicating that onset was not solely due to deliberate practice. The study suggests that understanding how spiritual voice-hearers cultivate and control voices after onset may inform interventions for distressing voices in psychosis.
Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany)
September 29, 2025
Wei Lin Toh, Sophie Richards, Charles Fernyhough et al.
4 citations
Hearing voices is well studied in psychosis, but unusual perceptions in other senses and in other mental health conditions are often overlooked. This narrative review examined voices and altered perceptual experiences across psychotic, mood, and anxiety disorders. Key findings include: these experiences vary widely within individuals and across diagnoses, often involving multiple senses; existing research focuses mainly on trauma and brain processes as causes; current theories mostly address only voices; new treatments need to be broader; and there are major issues with how these experiences are defined and how they differ across cultures. The review calls for better assessment tools and more consistent research methods, and emphasizes including patients' own perspectives and cultural context.
Schizophrenia bulletin
October 6, 2025
Charles Fernyhough, Janna De Boer, Paige E Davis et al.
3 citations
Hallucinations, which occur in many psychiatric disorders, may be better understood through the lens of developmental psychology. Their clinical significance depends on when they appear in a person's life. Key cognitive-developmental processes—such as engaging with imaginary entities, adverse events, executive functioning, social cognition, and language development—shape how hallucinations arise across different sensory modalities. Atypical developmental trajectories, as seen in certain conditions, also influence hallucination prevalence and phenomenology. Integrating developmental and psychiatric perspectives could yield mutual benefits for future research.