The Representation of Agents in Auditory Verbal Hallucinations

Abstract

Current models of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) tend to focus on the mechanisms underlying their occurrence, but often fail to address the content of the auditory experience. In other words, they tend to ask why there are AVHs at all, instead of asking why, given that there are AVHs, they have the properties that they have. One such property, which has been largely overlooked and which we will focus on here, is why the voices are often experienced as coming from (or being the voices of) agents, and often specific, individualised agents. In this article, we argue not only that the representation of agents is important in accurately describing many cases of AVH, but also that deeper reflection on what is involved in the representation of agents has potentially vital consequences for our aetiological understanding of AVH, namely, for understanding how and why AVHs come about.

Uncharted features and dynamics of reading: Voices, characters, and crossing of experiences

“…On the one hand this is consistent with accounts of auditory verbal hallucinations that emphasize their intrusive and uncontrollable nature (Badcock, Waters, Maybery, & Michie, 2005) along with their social and agentic characteristics (Wilkinson & Bell, 2016). On the other hand, this would also be consistent with psychological approaches to reading fiction that highlight its interrelation with theory-of-mind (Kidd and Castano, 2013, Mar et al, 2009), and in particular empathy (Mar & Oatley, 2008).…”

Hallucinations and Strong Priors

“…Voices seem likely to be the dominant (although not exclusive) content of auditory hallucinations because our auditory apparatus is tuned to (i.e., has precise priors for) the natural statistics of speech. And they may be experienced as agents communicating, because we believe (based on our overwhelming experience of the contiguity between voices and agents) that voices are typically attached to an agent [82]. The higher-level prior that emerges from paranoia (that one is the cynosure of others' preoccupations, thoughts, and actions) provides a ready-made expectation that there will be agents and communication.…”

A unified account of culture should accommodate animal cultures

“…It is interesting to note in the context of thinking through other minds that hallucination-like events are often social in nature (Wilkinson & Bell 2016). We hear someone speak, we see those who have passed away, we feel the touch of spirits and angels.…”