Revision of the factor structure of the Launay–Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS-R)

Abstract

The Launay–Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS-R) (Launay & Slade, 1981; Bentall & Slade, 1985a) is a frequently used measure of predisposition to hallucinations in normal individuals. The current study administered the LSHS-R to a large sample of English-speaking undergraduate students (N=562). Principal component analyses identified three factors characterised as (1) vivid mental events, (2) hallucinations with a religious theme, and (3) auditory and visual hallucinatory experiences. The first factor refers to mental events where the experience is recognised as one's own whereas the other two factors have in common that the experience is attributed to another source. The current factor structure is similar to the factors obtained by Levitan, Ward, Catts and Hemsley (1996) for participants with a psychiatric disorder and a history of auditory hallucinations, supporting the view that hallucinations exist on a continuum with normal experiences.