Hallucination Proneness is Linked to Over-Reliance on Internal Priors for Noisy Speech
AI Summary
Hallucination-proneness linked to reduced ability to distinguish intelligible from unintelligible degraded speech and a higher bias to report speech presence in noise.
Greater influence of internally generated priors on perception when incorrect, and reduced reliance on externally provided priors when correct.
Supports predictive processing models: imbalance favouring internal over external priors contributes to hallucination-proneness in a non-clinical sample.
BACKGROUND: According to predictive processing models, hallucinations can arise from over-weighting of prior expectations relative to sensory input. Individuals who hallucinate may misattribute internally-generated experiences to external sources. Combining these mechanisms, we hypothesized that hallucination-proneness in a non-clinical sample is associated with a greater reliance on internally-generated priors compared to externally-provided priors during degraded speech perception.
STUDY DESIGN: Two online experiments were conducted with healthy adult participants. Experiment 1 (n = 92) targeted lower-level perceptual processes by assessing sensitivity and bias in distinguishing regular vocoded speech from unintelligible, spectrally-rotated vocoded stimuli at varying levels of sensory clarity. Experiment 2 (n = 100) compared the influence of internally-generated versus externally-provided priors on perception of vocoded speech content. Internal- and external-priors were matched in reliability to test if hallucination-proneness was linked to differential influences of internally-generated priors on speech perception.
STUDY RESULTS: Experiment 1 confirmed that participants who are more hallucination-prone showed a reduced ability to distinguish potentially intelligible speech from unintelligible speech, and a higher bias toward indicating that speech was present in unintelligible stimuli. Experiment 2 confirmed differential effects of internal priors, showing that hallucination-proneness scores were linked to a greater influence on internally-generated priors on perceptual report when these were incorrect, and a lower reliance on externally-provided priors when these were correct.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that hallucination-proneness is linked to an increased influence of internally-generated compared to externally-provided predictions on perception, suggesting an additional element of predictive processing theories of hallucinations.
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