The voice characterisation checklist: psychometric properties of a brief clinical assessment of voices as social agents.
Frontiers in psychiatry January 1, 2023 Clementine J Edwards, Oliver Owrid, Lucy Miller et al.
A novel 10-item tool, the Voice Characterisation Checklist (VoCC), reliably assesses how much people personify the voices they hear. Among 170 participants who heard distressing voices, 94% reported some degree of voice personification. Most described voices as distinct auditory experiences with basic attributes like gender and age, and many attributed intentions and personalities to them. However, fewer than half attributed mental states to the voice or identified a known historical relationship. The VoCC showed acceptable internal consistency and good inter-rater reliability, making it useful for testing whether voice characterisation influences treatment outcomes in therapies like AVATAR therapy.