Imaginary Companions, Inner Speech, and Auditory Verbal Hallucinations: What Are the Relations?

Charles Fernyhough,Peter Moseley,Ben Alderson-Day,Marco Bernini,Ashley Watson

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01665

Charles Fernyhough, Peter Moseley + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01665

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Abstract

Interacting with imaginary companions (ICs) is now considered a natural part of childhood for many children, and has been associated with a range of positive developmental outcomes. Recent research has explored how the phenomenon of ICs in childhood and adulthood relates to the more unusual experience of hearing voices (or auditory verbal hallucinations, AVH). Specifically, parallels have been drawn between the varied phenomenology of the two kinds of experience, including the issues of quasi-perceptual vividness and autonomy/control. One line of research has explored how ICs might arise through the internalization of linguistically mediated social exchanges to form dialogic inner speech. We present data from two studies on the relation between ICs in childhood and adulthood and the experience of inner speech. In the first, a large community sample of adults (N = 1,472) completed online the new Varieties of Inner Speech – Revised (VISQ-R) questionnaire (Alderson-Day et al., 2018) on the phenomenology of inner speech, in addition to providing data on ICs and AVH. The results showed differences in inner speech phenomenology in individuals with a history of ICs, with higher scores on the Dialogic, Evaluative, and Other Voices subscales of the VISQ-R. In the second study, a smaller community sample of adults (N = 48) completed an auditory signal detection task as well as providing data on ICs and AVH. In addition to scoring higher on AVH proneness, individuals with a history of ICs showed reduced sensitivity to detecting speech in white noise as well as a bias toward detecting it. The latter finding mirrored a pattern previously found in both clinical and nonclinical individuals with AVH. These findings are consistent with the view that ICs represent a hallucination-like experience in childhood and adulthood which shows meaningful developmental relations with the experience of inner speech.

Highlights

Between a third and two-thirds of young school-age children will engage with imaginary companions (ICs), defined as invisible characters with whom children converse and interact (Taylor et al, 2004)
We examined ideas from Fernyhough et al (2007) and Davis et al (2013) on the relation between ICs and the development of inner speech
Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire – Revised The Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire – Revised (VISQ-R) is a 26-item scale that requires participants to report on the frequency of various phenomenological characteristics of inner speech (Alderson-Day et al, 2018)

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Between a third and two-thirds of young school-age children will engage with imaginary companions (ICs), defined as invisible characters with whom children converse and interact (Taylor et al, 2004). Using a more rigorous methodology, Fernyhough et al (2007) replicated this effect in two samples, linking the childhood experience of ICs to a Vygotskian view of development by which thinking develops through the gradual internalization of linguistically mediated social exchanges to form inner speech (see Alderson-Day and Fernyhough, 2015, for a review). This interpretation was subsequently supported by Davis et al.’s (2013) finding that children with ICs were more advanced (relative to their peers without ICs) on the internalization of private speech, considered by Vygotsky to be a precursor of inner speech. We assessed social cognition (theory of mind) to test specificity of any cognitive effects

Participants

Do you have any imaginary friends now?

Findings

Procedure