Early Career Hallucinations Research Group

Great preprint from @pavoorepic.bsky.social and colleagues showing that weaker performance on a self-other voice discrimination task is specifically associated with expericing hallucinations (data from 23 patients with AVH, 18 patients without AVH, and 40 controls ) www.medrxiv.org/content/medr...

ReplicationResearch.org is now open for submissions!

Submit replications and reproductions from many different fields, as well as conceptual contributions. With diamond OA, open and citable peer review reports, and reproducibility checks, we push the boundaries of open and fair publishing.

Volume 51 Issue Supplement_3 | Schizophrenia Bulletin | Oxford Academic The flagship journal of the Schizophrenia Bulletin family. Reviews recent developments and empirically based hypotheses regarding the etiology and treatment of schizophrenia, ranging from the molecula...

ICHR special issue in Schizophrenia Bulletin released this month. Too many good papers to mention - academic.oup.com/schizophreni...

Multisensory hallucinations and other unusual sensory experiences in the context of migraine: a systematic review - Journal of Neurology Objective and background Visual auras in migraine have been extensively studied, but less is known about multisensory hallucinations or other unusual sensory experiences, including whether these should be diagnostically considered as part of aura symptoms. The current study aimed to conduct a systematic review and synthesis to bring together existing empirical evidence on these non-visual perceptual experiences, focusing on their phenomenological descriptions and clinical correlates. Methods Forty-eight relevant studies were included based on a systematic search across PsycINFO APA and Web of Science, for peer-reviewed publications in the English language, from 1980 to the present. These comprised a mix of case reports/series (n = 19) and group design studies (n = 29). Results Reports of complex multisensory hallucinations, beyond typical established aura symptoms, were numerous and varied in nature. Yet there were limited data on how this related to patient distress and functional interference. Other sensory distortions or hypersensitivities across non-visual domains were also evident, and generally more common in those with established aura symptoms. Conclusion Our findings provide preliminary evidence that multisensory hallucinations and other unusual perceptual experiences in migraine are likely more common than previously believed. Further investigations are needed to appropriately account for these symptoms within current nosological systems. Increased clinician–patient awareness is important for managing distress (where necessary), and potentially for offering a holistic therapeutic approach to migraine management.

A great paper from last year (that I only recently discovered) on unusual sensory experinces in migraine. Lots of interesting detail here (e.g., re: olfactory hallucinations): link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The Content and Topography of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in Adult Psychosis Patients: What Does a Voice Say, and How Does It Say It? An Umbrella Review and Collation Background Auditory verbal hallucinations (‘voices’) in clinical psychosis are associated with significant distress and disability, but the efficacy of CBT for voices is modest. Greater phenomenolog.....

Umbrella review from Cassie Hazell (a co-founder of ECHR!) and colleagues on what voices (AKA auditory verbal hallcuinations) say and how they say it (e.g., voice frequency, emotional tone, gender, and accent) - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

A note on Smailes et al. (2014), Smailes et al. (2015), and Smailes et al. (2020) Hosted on the Open Science Framework

... I certainly haven't been very good at this in the past (I 'grew up' using E-Prime and SPSS). And so am now trying to reproduce some of the tasks I used in the past in free-to-use software. E.g. osf.io/t7vdc/

Why should I use free/open source materials/software? As mentioned in another post, sharing the materials you have used to conduct a study can help others to replicate your work. Replication is important because it allows the research community test h…

Another post on the echr.group blog about using free-open-source software to (at least in part) aid reproducibility/replication effecorts. See echr.group/2025/10/03/w... ...

Hearing voices and other altered perceptual experiences across psychotic, mood, and anxiety disorders: from phenomenology and mechanisms to future directions - Schizophrenia Schizophrenia - Hearing voices and other altered perceptual experiences across psychotic, mood, and anxiety disorders: from phenomenology and mechanisms to future directions

Recent review from former ECHRer @pmoseley.bsky.social and colleagues on voice-hearing and other unusual sensory experineces in psychotic, mood, and anxiety disorders. Cites my work three times, so it must be good - www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Felt-Presence and Psychosis-Risk in the General Population Abstract. Objective: Felt presence (FP) is the experience that another entity is present in one’s proximal environment, despite no sensory evidence. Occurrence of FP is linked to psychosis-risk, but q...

New paper from @parkbmb.bsky.social on links between felt presence and psychosis risk. Some surprising associations between individual differences in resilience and aspects of felt presence experiences: karger.com/psp/article/...

👇

🔍 Have we solved the replication crisis?

Join us for an IGOR panel discussion on the state of Open Science in biological psychology more than a decade after the crisis first hit.

📅 Friday, 10 Oct | 10:00–11:00 CET
💻 Online (contact us for the link)

#OpenScience #neuroskyence #academicsky

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Awesome work by @jorge-morales.bsky.social and team, using LLMs to suggest that propositional reasoning might be enough to solve classic imagery tasks! ✨

Multimodal hallucinations in Muslim patients with severe psychotic disorders: The entity experience revisited Abstract. Introduction: In biomedicine, entity experiences are conceptualised as compound hallucinations featuring living beings. The term ‘experience’ suggests that these have an objective basis in r...

Interesting qual study on multimodal hallucinations experienced by Muslim patients with psychosis re: the role of jinn-eoncounters: karger.com/psp/article/...

Just one day left to apply to this role! ⏱️

Come work with us developing computational models to pick apart the mechanisms underlying social cognition and threat using THC 💊 neuroimaging 🧠 and interactive behavioural paradigms 👥

Apply here -> lnkd.in/eCMy9Jf5

Why should I share my materials? Most researchers would likely agree that a core part of the scientific process is attempting to replicate others’ findings, to see how robust/trustworthy those findings are. While conceptual replic…

Another blogpost from me [@davidesmailes.bsky.social] on Open Research - this time on open sharing of research materials. This makes our work more transparent, makes it easier for others to replicate your work, and reduces research waste. More here: echr.group/2025/09/26/w...

Impaired corollary discharge as a predictor of reality monitoring deficits in schizophrenia: Implications for auditory verbal hallucinations Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) in schizophrenia are linked to reality monitoring (RM) impairment in source monitoring tasks. However, little is …

Big (r = .65) association between externalizing bias on a source memory task and severity of auditory hallucinations (AHRS score) in a sample of psychosis patients (N = 35) - www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Association between visual imagery characteristics and vividness ratings: examining one component of imagery experience in vividness measurement scales This study examined the associations between visual imagery characteristics and vividness ratings in vividness measurement scales, focusing on one components of imagery experience identified in qua...

...On the topic of self-reports, this - www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... - paper finds that mental imagery vividness ratings vary as function of what participants are 'imaging' (e.g., whether the 'source' of the mental image was personally experienced, whether the mental image involved motion).

Perspective piece on self-report and task measures of psychological constructs, with related letters here - www.nature.com/articles/s44... - and here - www.nature.com/articles/s44... ...

Effects of an unguided self-help intervention for distressing auditory verbal hallucinations in a heterogenous sample of voice hearers: A randomized controlled trial and explorative cluster analysis Clinical care and research need to improve treatment availability for auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). To provide further evidence, we examined t…

No effect of self-guided meta-cognitive therapy (versus waitlist) for distressing AVH in this - www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... - RCT (N = 78).

Interesting paper on tactile hallucinations in Lewy Body Dementia - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... Reported by about 7% of patients. Associated with visual and conversational hallucinations. Despite N = 147, the hallucinating group (n = 10) is pretty small, though.

And there's a commentary here: psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1...

...A preprint version is avaiable at this - osf.io/8jbp3/download - link (if you don't have access to AJP....

20 Years of Aberrant Salience in Psychosis: What Have We Learned? | American Journal of Psychiatry Twenty years ago Shitij Kapur’s “Psychosis as a state of aberrant salience” captured the attention of clinicians and cognitive and behavioral neuroscientists. It has become the de facto way of talking...

A review of 20 yeras of aberrant salience and pschosis research at this - psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1... - link. Notes that "the data do not suggest the particular link [from aberrant salience] to delusions that Kapur posited"...

A longitudinal study on the relationship between delusional ideation and social network It is critical to understand the directional relationship between delusional ideation (DI) and one's social network to clarify time-dependent points o…

Another new publication from ECHR members: In this - www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... - longitudinal study, Marks et al. found that delusional ideation prospectively predicted their measure of social network. But their measure of social network did not prospectively predict delusional ideation.

What Do Four Decades of Research Tell Us About the Association Between Childhood Adversity and Psychosis: An Updated and Extended Multi-Level Meta-Analysis | American Journal of Psychiatry Objective: Estimating the current association between childhood adversity and the risk of psychosis is crucial for prevention and intervention. We provided an updated synthesis of evidence from the pa...

... and a huge meta-analysis on childhood adversity and risk of psychosis: psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/...

... on atypical efferent auditory pathways in psychosis: www.nature.com/articles/s41... ...

Co-occurring eating disorder and psychosis: a lived experience case exploration with examples and suggestions for personalized integrated treatment approach - Journal of Eating Disorders Disordered eating or eating disorders (ED) and psychosis commonly co-occur and have a degree of overlap, however there are no current clinical guidelines or comprehensive clinical guidance for integra...

Several new publications from ECHR members! On co-occurring eating disorder and psychosis: jeatdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... ...

Possibly a v good opportunity from some ECHR folks. Editorial fellowhsips for ECRs at a series of APA journals, inc some clinically-relevant ones.

Fellows serve a 12-month terms beginning January 1, 2026. Includes a $1,000 honorarium.

New blog from our co-chair @dremmaclaire.bsky.social on her recent paper on tone-matching and psychotic experiences.

Involuntary Autobiographical Memory and Future Thought Predicting Hallucination Proneness - Mélissa C. Allé, Fabrice Berna, Dorthe Berntsen, 2018 Involuntary (spontaneously arising) autobiographical memories and involuntary future thoughts are common in daily life, but their frequency and emotional intens...

...led me to this - journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... - older, but really great, paper on involuntary autobiographical memories and hallucinatory experiences.