The first seminar in the 2015 Hearing the Voice Research Seminar series, featuring a presentation by Dr Ben Alderson-Day on Voices, agents, and presences: Asking the “who” question of auditory verbal hallucinations’ will take place in the Birley Room at Hatfield College at Durham University (number 20 on this map) on Thursday 22 January 2015, 5 pm – 7 pm.
Abstract: Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) or ‘hearing voices’ are often described as being characterful or having their own persona. This, along with reports of voices that lack auditory characteristics but retain “presence”, has led some authors to argue that AVH may be primarily be experienced as social actors or agents, rather than simply hallucinated sounds. In this talk I review such claims and considers how existing cognitive theories of AVH may accommodate the presence of social or agent-like representations, focusing on inner speech, memory, and predictive processing accounts. I argue that the “social presence” of voices can be accommodated by existing models, but only via better recognition of how social interaction shapes ordinary speech perception and inner speech processes. Implications for understanding AVH experiences, how they develop, and how they may be managed when distressing are discussed.
Anyone with an interest in Hearing the Voice research is welcome to attend. If you would like to reserve a place, please fill in our online registration form.
If you have any queries about the event, please contact Victoria Patton.
Information about other events in the Hearing the Voice Research Seminar series can be found here.