Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Oct 31.
doi: 10.1002/cpp.2920. Online ahead of print.

Emotional and non-emotional mental imagery and auditory verbal hallucinations (hearing voices): A systematic review of imagery assessment tools

Hella Janssen  1   2 , Karin C van den Berg  1   3 , Georgie Paulik  4   5   6 , Katherine Newman-Taylor  7   8 , Christopher D J Taylor  9   10 , Craig Steel  11   12 , Ger P J Keijsers  3   13 , Machteld C Marcelis  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Emotional and non-emotional mental imagery and auditory verbal hallucinations (hearing voices): A systematic review of imagery assessment tools

Hella Janssen et al. Clin Psychol Psychother. .

Abstract

It is unknown to what extent mental imagery and auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) are related. Trials evaluating this issue used both emotional and non-emotional mental imagery tools, thereby complicating outcomes comparisons. Therefore, the present study aimed to systematically review the literature on mental imagery in individuals with AVHs to (1) inventory imagery assessment tools used in this population, (2) to collect information on the relation between emotional and non-emotional mental imagery in all sensory domains and AVHs and (3) to integrate the outcomes of this systematic review in a model of different mental imagery domains and related assessment tools. We conducted a systematic literature search in the PubMed Database. After full-text screening, 17 papers were included. Findings showed that a variety of assessment methods have been used to assess various aspects of mental imagery in people with AVHs, suggesting that there is a lack of agreed theoretical conceptualization of mental imagery and AVHs. In addition, the studies confirmed as was expected that non-emotional mental imagery seemed unrelated to AVHs whereas emotional mental imagery was related to AVHs. Lastly, we proposed a model of mental imagery domains and corresponding assessment methods distinguishing between emotional and non-emotional mental imagery.

Keywords: auditory verbal hallucinations; imagery assessment tools; mental imagery; voice hearing.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Aleman, A., & Larøi, F. (2008). Hallucinations: The science of idiosyncratic perception. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/11751-000
    1. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-5®). Van Haren Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596
    1. Arntz, A., & Weertman, A. (1999). Treatment of childhood memories: Theory and practice. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 37(8), 715-740. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7967(98)00173-9
    1. Auvinen-Lintunen, L., Ilonen, T., Kieseppä, T., Suvisaari, J., & Lindgren, M. (2021). Mental imagery in early psychosis. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1177/02762366211021762
    1. Aynsworth, C., Nemat, N., Collerton, D., Smailes, D., & Dudley, R. (2017). Reality monitoring performance and the role of visual imagery in visual hallucinations. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 97, 115-122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2017.07.012

LinkOut - more resources