Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale Research Articles

Factorial Structure of the Hallucinatory Experience

Examination of the distribution of the hallucinatory experience may aide in the determination of their continuity and the psychological mechanisms that mediate their occurrence. Past investigators have found that hallucinatory experiences are not limited to disordered individuals and can be induced in the laboratory and occur naturally in the general population. Few reports to date, however, have directly investigated the continuity of the experience by comparing hallucinatory behavior of psychotic patients with a nonclinical sample. In the present study, we examined the architecture of the hallucinatory experience by comparing the factorial structure of the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale using psychotic patients with active hallucinations, psychotic inpatients without hallucinations, and a group of university students. In support of the continuum model of psychosis, a very similar factor-analytic solution was obtained for all three groups. Discriminant function analysis, however, revealed that all groups achieved a high classified rate by their item responses. These results are consistent with the notion that expression of hallucinatory behavior exists along a continuum, but at a certain level of symptom severity beyond a critical threshold, the behavior becomes discontinuous and dysfunctional.

Associations between hallucinations and personality structure in a non-clinical sample: Comparison between young and elderly samples

Few studies have explored the prevalence of hallucinations in the non-clinical, elderly population. Also, the association between personality structure and hallucinations remains poorly investigated. The aims of the present study were twofold. First, to explore the influence of age on the prevalence of hallucination-proneness, and second, to examine the association between personality and hallucination-proneness in young and elderly subjects. A sample of young ( n = 230) and elderly adults ( n = 183) completed an elaborated and validated version of the Launay–Slade Hallucinations Scale (LSHS; Larøi, Marczewski, & Van der Linden, 2004) and the Five Factor Inventory version of the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI; Costa, & McCrae, 1992). Differences were found between elderly and young subjects depending on the type of hallucination. Analyses of associations between personality domains and hallucination-proneness revealed differing associations for the young and elderly groups. For the young sample, there were significant associations between LSHS-scores and Openness to Experience and Neuroticism domains. For elderly subjects, only the Openness to Experience domain was significantly associated with LSHS-scores. Furthermore, in the young sample, Neuroticism was significantly associated with the presence of both auditory hallucinations and vivid daydreaming.

Metacognitions in proneness towards hallucinations and delusions

The objectives of the present study were to examine the degree of co-existence of hallucinations and delusions in the nonclinical population. In addition, we wished to investigate the role of metacognitions in hallucinations and delusions. Finally, we explored the relative roles of positive and negative metacognitive beliefs in proneness to hallucinations and delusions. Three hundred and thirty-one nonclinical participants completed instruments assessing: hallucination-proneness (Launay–Slade Hallucinations Scale; LSHS), delusion-proneness (21-item version of the Peters et al. Delusions Inventory; PDI-21) and metacognitive beliefs (Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire; MCQ). Participants were successively grouped according to their scores on the LSHS and the PDI-21. Results revealed that hallucination-proneness was positively and significantly associated with delusion-proneness. Furthermore, hallucination-prone and delusion-prone participants scored significantly higher on some sub-scales of the MCQ compared to non-prone participants. Finally, multiple regression analysis revealed that positive and negative beliefs were good predictors of proneness towards hallucinations and delusions.

The effects of emotional salience, cognitive effort and meta-cognitive beliefs on a reality monitoring task in hallucination-prone subjects.

A tendency to externalize internal information on reality monitoring tasks has been documented in psychiatric patients with hallucinations. Furthermore, previous studies suggest that factors such as the emotional salience of the material, cognitive effort and meta-cognitive beliefs are important contributory factors in this tendency to externalize internal information on reality monitoring tasks. However, few studies have investigated these aspects in hallucination-prone subjects. Also, these factors have never been examined simultaneously. In the following study we wished to examine the effects of emotional salience, cognitive effort and meta-cognitive beliefs on reality monitoring functioning in hallucination-prone subjects. Between-participants group design. One hundred normal subjects were administered a reality monitoring task. Words were presented by the experimenter. After each word, subjects were asked to say the first word that came to their mind. Words varied in terms of emotional valence and cognitive effort (high cognitive effort for words requiring longer latency times to associate a word and vice versa). Following a delay, words were presented consisting of those already presented by the experimenter or the subject (old) and those never presented before (new). For each word, subjects were required to identify whether the word was old or new. If the word was identified as old, subjects were required to identify the source of the word (subject or experimenter). Subjects also completed a questionnaire assessing meta-cognitive beliefs. Subjects were grouped according to their scores on a revised and elaborated version of the Launay-Slade Hallucinations Scale (LSHS). Those with scores within the top 25% were included in the hallucination-prone group (HP) (N = 25), whereas scores within the lower 25% were included in the non-hallucination-prone group (NHP) (N = 25). Results showed that the HP subjects had significantly more source discrimination errors than NHP subjects for self-generated items. In other words, HP subjects tended to misattribute to the experimenter items that they had produced themselves. This pattern was especially marked with emotionally charged material and with words that required more cognitive effort. In addition, HP subjects scored significantly higher on a scale assessing meta-cognitive beliefs compared with NHP subjects. Finally, scores on a scale assessing meta-cognitive beliefs were positively associated with source discrimination errors. These results suggest that cognitive effort, emotional salience and meta-cognitive beliefs all play a prominent role in the externalizing bias in hallucination-prone subjects. The results also provide evidence for the validity of the idea of a continuity between hallucination-prone subjects and psychotic patients with hallucinations on reality monitoring tasks, including a number of contributing factors in the occurrence of hallucinations.

Further evidence of the multi-dimensionality of hallucinatory predisposition: factor structure of a modified version of the Launay-Slade Hallucinations Scale in a normal sample

Recent years has seen an increasing interest in the hallucinatory experience, including investigations of its phenomenological prevalence and character both in pathological and normal (predisposed) populations. We investigated the multi-dimensionality of hallucinatory experiences in 265 subjects from the normal population, who completed a modified version of the Launay-Slade Hallucinations Scale. Principal components analysis was performed on the data. Four factors were obtained loading on items reflecting (1) sleep-related hallucinatory experiences (2) vivid daydreams (3) intrusive thoughts or realness of thought and (4) auditory hallucinations. The results offer further evidence of the multi-dimensionalityof hallucinatory disposition in the normal population. Directions for future research in hallucinatory predisposition are discussed.

Emotional processing in a non-clinical psychosis-prone sample

Symptoms of psychosis have been proposed to form part of a continuous distribution of experiences in the general population rather than being an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Indeed, schizotypal signs have been reported in subjects from non-clinical samples. Emotional processing has been documented to be deficient in schizophrenia. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis whether putatively psychosis-prone subjects would show abnormalities in emotion processing. Based on the extremes of Launay–Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS) ratings of 200 undergraduate students, two groups of subjects (total N=40) were selected. All 40 participants filled in the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ). We compared both groups on an alexithymia questionnaire and on four behavioral emotional information processing tasks. Hallucination-proneness was associated with an increased subjective emotional arousal and fantasy-proneness. Although no differences between the high and low group were observed on three behavioral emotion processing tasks, on the affective word-priming task presentation of emotional stimuli was associated with longer reactions times to neutral words in high schizotypal subjects. Also, SPQ scores correlated with several emotion processing tasks. We conclude that these findings lend partial support to the hypothesis of continuity between symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia and psychosis-related phenomena in the normal population.

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

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.

Interpersonal attributional biases in hallucinatory-prone individuals

Research in the area of auditory hallucinations has found that the occurrence of a hallucinatory experience is mediated, in part, by a bias towards making an external attribution for private events and experiences. The current study examined whether external attributional biases in hallucinators extend to their interpretation of social–cognitive interpersonal events. University students scoring high and low on the Launay–Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS) were compared on self-report measures of locus-of-control (LOC) orientation, psychosis proneness and on the Phares [Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 54 (1957) 339–342] “betting task” designed to encourage internal locus-of-control attributions. We predicted that high LSHS scorers would be less susceptible to a reinforcement paradigm designed to encourage internal locus-of-control judgments compared to low LSHS scorers. Consistent with our hypothesis, results revealed that hallucinatory predisposed individuals were less likely to show increased success expectancy following reinforcement and to decrease success expectancy following failure than were non-hallucinatory predisposed subjects. These findings suggest that hallucinatory-prone individuals not only make external attributions for private events and experiences, but are more likely to make external attributions to social–interpersonal events as well. We also found that subjects' severity of hallucinatory predisposition was significantly associated with their Chapman Magical Ideation and Perceptual Aberration scale scores. These results are consistent with past studies that suggest that hallucinatory subjects are more vulnerable to suggestion and support the notion that external loci of control over interpersonal experiences are associated with increased psychosis vulnerability.

Cognitive and emotional predictors of predisposition to hallucinations in non-patients.

This study reports the development of a self-report measure to assess interpretations of voices (Interpretations of Voices Inventory: IVI) and a revision of the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale (RHS) to measure predisposition to hallucinations in non-patients. We aimed to test the specific hypothesis that positive interpretations of voices would predict frequency of hallucinatory experiences. There were 132 non-clinical participants who were asked to complete questionnaires assessing interpretations of voices, predisposition to hallucinations, meta-cognitive beliefs, anxiety and delusional ideation. The results showed that three empirically distinct subscales were measured by the IVI (meta-physical beliefs about voices, positive beliefs about voices and interpretations of loss of control). The RHS was also found to have three subscales (vividness of imagination and daydreaming, tendency towards experiencing visual disturbances and hallucinations, and tendency towards experiencing auditory hallucinations). The scales possessed acceptable internal consistency and were moderately stable over a period of 4-6 weeks. Consistent with predictions, it was found that positive beliefs about voices were significantly associated with predisposition to auditory hallucinations, and negative interpretations of voices were associated with endorsing the item assessing troublesome voices. The theoretical and clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Another White Christmas: fantasy proneness and reports of ‘hallucinatory experiences’ in undergraduate students

In the current experiment, 44 undergraduate students were asked to listen to white noise and instructed to press a button when they believed hearing a recording of Bing Crosby's White Christmas without this record actually being presented. Fourteen participants (32%) pressed the button at least once. These participants had higher scores on fantasy proneness and the Launay–Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS) compared to participants without hallucinatory reports. Both groups did not differ in terms of imagery vividness or sensitivity to social demands. Logistic regression suggested that fantasy proneness is a better predictor of hallucinatory reports than are LSHS scores. This might imply that hallucinatory reports obtained during the White Christmas test reflect a non-specific preference for odd items rather than schizophrenia-like, internal experiences.

Hallucinatory predisposition and vividness of auditory imagery: self-report and behavioral indices.

This study examined the relation between a subjective and a behavioral measure of the vividness of auditory imagery as well as the disposition towards hallucination in normal subjects. In addition to the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale, subjects (57 university students) completed the Betts questionnaire in which they rated the vividness of their experienced mental images and performed a behavioral task aimed at measuring auditory imagery. The task consisted of a perception and an imagery condition in which subjects had to indicate the odd one of three everyday sounds. Performance on the behavioral task did not correlate with the auditory or scores on the Visual subscale of the Betts. In addition, neither scores on the behavioral measure nor the Auditory subscale of the Betts correlated significantly with hallucinatory predisposition as rated on the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale. In contrast, the Visual subscale of the Betts did correlate with scores on the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale, consistent with previous research. We conclude that there is no straightforward relationship between imagery vividness and hallucinatory experiences and that subjective and objective indices of imagery vividness measure different aspects of mental function.

HALLUCINATORY PREDISPOSITION AND VIVIDNESS OF AUDITORY IMAGERY: SELF-REPORT AND BEHAVIORAL INDICES

This study examined the relation between a subjective and a behavioral measure of the vividness of auditory imagery as well as the disposition towards hallucination in normal subjects. In addition to the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale, subjects (57 university students) completed the Betts questionnaire in which they rated the vividness of their experienced mental images and performed a behavioral task aimed at measuring auditory imagery. The task consisted of a perception and an imagery condition in which subjects had to indicate the odd one of three everyday sounds. Performance on the behavioral task did not correlate with the auditory or scores on the Visual subscale of the Betts. In addition, neither scores on the behavioral measure nor the Auditory subscale of the Betts correlated significantly with hallucinatory predisposition as rated on the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale. In contrast, the Visual subscale of the Betts did correlate with scores on the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale, consistent with previous research. We conclude that there is no straightforward relationship between imagery vividness and hallucinatory experiences and that subjective and objective indices of imagery vividness measure different aspects of mental function.

Multi-dimensionality of hallucinatory predisposition: factor structure of the Launay–Slade Hallucination Scale in a normal sample

A substantial percentage of normal people has been documented to report hallucinatory experiences. We investigated the multi-dimensionality of such experiences in 243 subjects from the normal population who completed the Launay–Slade Hallucination Scale. Principal components analysis with oblique rotation was performed on the data. Three factors were obtained loading on items reflecting (1) tendency towards hallucinatory experiences, (2) subjective externality of thought, and (3) vivid daydreams. An additional exploratory factor analysis revealed highly similar factors. The results support the concept of hallucinatory disposition as a multi-dimensional construct.

Mental imagery and perception in hallucination-prone individuals.

College students screened for hallucination-proneness using the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS) were compared on measures of self-report vividness of imagery and on behavioral measures of imagery and perception (visual and auditory). Specifically, we tested the hypothesis whether hallucination-prone individuals would show smaller differences between imagery and perception performance, which may be indicative of increased sensory characteristics of mental images. We replicated earlier findings of higher self-report imagery ratings in the high hallucination-prone group. However, the two groups did not differ on five of six behavioral imagery-perception comparisons. On one visual task, hallucination-proneness was associated with larger imagery-perception differences. Our results reveal a dissociation between the level of subjective experience and the information processing level. Although vividness of mental images may be subjectively associated with mild hallucinatory experiences, we suggest that cognitive processes associated with reality discrimination rather than increased perceptual characteristics of mental images may play a role at the information processing level.

Cognitive factors in predisposition to auditory and visual hallucinations.

This study adapted the Launay Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS) to measure predisposition to auditory and visual hallucinations and examine the relationship between meta-cognition and predisposition in a non-psychiatric population. It also tested the hypothesis that individuals highly predisposed to hallucination would show positive and negative meta-cognitive beliefs and report the use of different thought control strategies. A within participants correlational design was employed. A revised LSHS was administered to 105 normal participants who were also asked to complete questionnaires assessing paranoia, meta-cognitive beliefs, thought control strategies, anxiety, depression and beliefs about unusual perceptual experiences. Two empirically distinct but correlated hallucinatory traits (auditory and visual) were measured by the modified LSHS. Consistent with predictions, it was found that positive beliefs about unusual perceptual experiences were the best predictor of predisposition to auditory and visual hallucinations and that those participants who scored higher on predisposition to hallucination used different thought control strategies and had different negative meta-cognitive beliefs in comparison with participants of low predisposition. Meta-cognitive beliefs about thoughts and hallucinatory phenomena appear to be implicated in predisposition to hallucination. The theoretical and clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Temporal stability of the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale for high- and low-scoring normal subjects.

It has been documented that many normal people report hallucinatory experiences. The Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale is widely used to investigate differences between subjects who score high or low in hallucinatory predisposition. In this study we addressed the question of whether scores remain stable over time. We selected 19 high-scoring subjects and 17 low-scoring subjects (upper and lower quartile) from a group of 243 undergraduate students who completed the scale. These two groups retook the scale after a period of 3 to 6 weeks. 81% received the same classification, which supports the view of hallucinatory predisposition as a stable trait; however, for 30% of the subjects the mean rating at the second time differed more than 3 SDs from the mean rating at the first time. In addition, the mean rating of 19% of subjects changed enough so they did not receive the same classification, indicating that state characteristics may also affect these scores.

Disposition towards hallucination and subjectiveversus objective vividness of imagery in normal subjects

In the present study we investigated the relation between subjective and objectiveindices of vividness of imagery and disposition towards hallucination in 74 college students.Self-reported imagery vividness was measured with the visual and auditory subscales of the BettsQMI Vividness of Imagery Scale. The objective task concerned the difference between aperceptual and an imagery condition of judgment of visual similarity of named objects. Inaddition, subjects completed a hallucination questionnaire (the Launay-Slade HallucinationScale). After assigning subjects to a high and a low scoring group on the basis of scores on thehallucination scale, analysis of variance revealed a significant interaction between group and thetwo vividness of imagery measures. Subjects reporting hallucinatory experiences tended to showhigher imagery vividness ratings on the Betts Scale than nonhallucinating subjects. In contrast,the reverse relation was found on the experimental imagery task. Implications of these findingsfor the validity of self-report imagery vividness measures are discussed. Directions for futureresearch are outlined.

Predisposition toward auditory hallucinations: the utility of the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale in psychiatric patients

The aim of the present study was to examine the factor structure of the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale (1981), a measure of hallucinatory predisposition, in a sample of 169 psychiatric patients. Principal components analysis was carried out on scores derived from the modified LSHS (Bentall & Slade, Personality and Individual Differences, 6, 527–529, 1985). Factor one loaded on items concerning vivid daydreams; factors two loaded on items reflecting hallucinatory experience in psychosis; factor three loaded highly on items tapping intrusive, vivid thoughts; while factor four loaded on items tapping perceptual abberations. These data support the separability of the LSHS sub-clinical and clinical types of auditory hallucinations.

Auditory and visual hallucinations in university students

One-hundred and thirty-six university students were administered the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS). Low and high scorers then completed a visual and an auditory task that utilized non-hypnotic suggestion and ambiguous stimuli. The high LSHS group reported a significantly greater number of meaningful visual and auditory experiences in response to the ambiguous stimulation. It is argued that these phenomena are hallucinations and demonstrate the possibility of researching hallucinations in non-psychotic populations in a laboratory setting.

The role of brief instructions and suggestibility in the elicitation of auditory and visual hallucinations in normal and psychiatric subjects.

The present study is an investigation of the elicitation of auditory and visual hallucinations by brief instructions and the relationship of the report of hallucinatory-type experiences to standard measures of suggestibility. Two experiments were carried out. The first used normal subjects predisposed or not predisposed to hallucinate, as assessed by the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS-A). The second used hallucinating and nonhallucinating psychiatric patients. The high LSHS-A scorers and the hallucinating psychiatric patients were significantly more likely to hear suggested sounds than were their respective controls. High LSHS-A scorers were also significantly more likely to see suggested objects than were their respective controls, although this finding was not replicated in the psychiatric subjects. No significant differences on measures of suggestibility were found between the groups, although in the psychiatric group Barber Test Suggestion and Subjective Involvement scores correlated positively with LSHS-A scores.