Correlates of hallucinatory experiences in the general population: an international multisite replication study
Open accessAbstract
Hallucinatory experiences can occur in both clinical and nonclinical groups. However, in previous studies of the general population, investigations of the cognitive mechanisms underlying hallucinatory experiences have yielded inconsistent results. We ran a large-scale preregistered multisite study, in which general-population participants ( N = 1,394 across 11 data-collection sites and online) completed assessments of hallucinatory experiences, a measure of adverse childhood experiences, and four tasks: source memory, dichotic listening, backward digit span, and auditory signal detection. We found that hallucinatory experiences were associated with a higher false-alarm rate on the signal detection task and a greater number of reported adverse childhood experiences but not with any of the other cognitive measures employed. These findings are an important step in improving reproducibility in hallucinations research and suggest that the replicability of some findings regarding cognition in clinical samples needs to be investigated.
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The result that participants who hallucinate are more likely to incorrectly recall a spoken word as heard has not been replicated in general population groups.
“although this result has not been replicated in general population groups. 20 , 21 , 27”
From Towards an Integrative Account of Potential Mechanisms Mediating the Path From Sleep Dysfunction to Hallucinations (2025) · cites this paper as [27]
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- Authors
- Moseley, P., Aleman, A., Allen, P., Bell, V., Bless, J., Bortolon, C., Cella, M., Garrison, J., Hugdahl, K., Kozáková, E., Larøi, F., Moffatt, J., Say, N., Smailes, D., Suzuki, M., Toh, W. L., Woodward, T., Zaytseva, Y., Rossell, S., & Fernyhough, C.
- Affiliations
- Northumbria University (GB)
- University Medical Center Groningen (NL)
- King's College London (GB)
- University College London (GB)
- University of Bergen (NO)
- Laboratoire Inter-universitaire de Psychologie: Personnalité, Cognition, Changement Social (FR)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- Haukeland University Hospital (NO)
- Charles University (CZ)
- University of Liège (BE)
- University of Sussex (GB)
- Swinburne University of Technology (AU)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne (AU)
- Durham University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Moseley, Peter
- ORCID
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2021-06-04
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1024-1037
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- PMC
- PMC8641136
- OpenAlex
- W3049155646
- Cited by
- 46
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 2
- FWCI
- 3.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Northumbria Research Link (Northumbria University) (acceptedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- Sussex Research Online (University of Sussex) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Apollo (University of Cambridge) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Open Repository and Bibliography (University of Liège) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Apollo
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (108720/Z/15/Z, WT 108720)
- Ministerstvo Zdravotnictví Ceské Republiky (17-32957A, LO1611, AZV 17-32957A)
- Norges Forskningsråd
- Medical Research Council (GNT1154651, GNT1060664)
- National Health and Medical Research Council (1161609, 1154651, 1060664)
- National Institute of Mental Health (LO1611)
- H2020 European Research Council (693124)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Hallucinations in medical conditions
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Keywords
- hallucinations, general population, adverse childhood experiences, source memory, dichotic listening, backward digit span, auditory signal detection, false alarm rate, replication
- MeSH terms
- Auditory Perception, Cognition, Hallucinations, Humans, Reproducibility of Results
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