High emotional arousal and failures in reality monitoring: Pathways to auditory hallucinations in non‐psychotic children?

Abstract

Recent research has confirmed the presence of auditory hallucinations in non-psychotic children, with this research also suggesting that such hallucinations may be more common than previously thought. While auditory hallucinations in children have frequently been associated with high levels of emotional stress, there is still a poor understanding of how this stress may precipitate hallucinations, and why some children experience hallucinations while others seem not to. The current study assessed the association between high levels of trauma symptomatology, anxiety and depression, and the presence of hallucinations against matched controls. Results indicated that hallucinating children had significantly higher mean anxiety, depression and, in particular, re-experiencing scores than did the children in the control group. These results were examined within the framework of reality monitoring, that is, the ability to distinguish between externally or internally generated sources of information. The notion of high levels of emotional distress decreasing the efficiency of reality monitoring and leading to the possibility of confusion between internally and externally generated stimuli was discussed, with the conclusion advanced that the misattribution of an externally generated source--either held as a memory or as a traumatic re-experiencing--as an internally generated one, underlies hallucinatory experiences.