Imagery vividness, reality testing, and schizophrenic hallucinations.

Groups of schizophrenics with and without auditory hallucinations and nonpsychotic controls were administered a test of vividness of auditory imagery, participated in a listening task, and were measured on their ability to assess the accuracy of their auditory perceptions. In accordance with the hypothesis, the hallucinators tended to have high, and the nonhallucinators low vividness of auditory imagery. Furthermore, the three groups differed significantly in their ability to assess the accuracy of their auditory perceptions, with the hallucinators demonstrating the greatest inability while the controls were best able to judge the correctness of their auditory perceptions. A model of hallucination formation is proposed in which vividness of auditory imagery and defective reality testing are seen as prerequisite but not necessarily sufficient. In- a study of hypnotic-like experiences, Spanos and Barber (1968) gave the following instructions to 90 student nurses: I want you to close your eyes and hear a phonograph record with words and music playing White Christmas. Keep listening to the phonograph playing White Christmas until I ask you to stop p. 139. Actually, there was no record or phonograph present. The 5s were then requested to check the one sentence among the following four choices that best described their experience: A. I heard a phonograph record of White Christmas clearly and believed that the record was actually playing. B. I heard the phonograph record of White Christmas clearly but knew there was no record actually playing. C. I had a vague impression of hearing the record playing White Christmas. D. I did not hear the record. p. 139 Forty-three of these normal 5s (48%) checked Sentence B. The essentials of this design were replicated on several occasions with basically similar results (Barber Calverly,