Auditory feature perception and auditory hallucinatory experiences in schizophrenia spectrum disorder

Abstract

Schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SZ) is associated with deficits in auditory perception as well as auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). However, the relationship between auditory feature perception and auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH), one of the most commonly occurring symptoms in psychosis, has not been well characterized. This study evaluated perception of a broad range of auditory features in SZ and determined whether current AVHs relate to auditory feature perception. Auditory perception, including frequency, intensity, duration, pulse-train and temporal order discrimination, as well as an embedded tone task, was assessed in both AVH (n = 20) and non-AVH (n = 24) SZ individuals and in healthy controls (n = 29) with the Test of Basic Auditory Capabilities (TBAC). The Hamilton Program for Schizophrenia Voices Questionnaire (HPSVQ) was used to assess the experience of auditory hallucinations in patients with SZ. Findings suggest that compared to controls, the SZ group had greater deficits on an array of auditory features, with non-AVH SZ individuals showing the most severe degree of abnormality. IQ and measures of cognitive processing were positively associated with performance on the TBAC for all SZ individuals, but not with the HPSVQ scores. These findings indicate that persons with SZ demonstrate impaired auditory perception for a broad range of features. It does not appear that impaired auditory perception is associated with recent auditory verbal hallucinations, but instead associated with the degree of intellectual impairment in SZ.

Self-voice perception and its relationship with hallucination predisposition

“…Hence, discrimination is thought to precede recognition in traditional models of person recognition (Bruce & Young, 1986;Burton, Bruce, & Johnston, 1990). Schizophrenia patients present alterations in auditory feature perception that could contribute to changed voice discrimination as hallucinated voices may compete for auditory processing resources; however, these changes were not clearly moderated by AVH (Ford et al, 2012;Javitt, Shelley, & Ritter, 2000;Schnakenberg Martin et al, 2018). Impaired self-voice recognition has been documented in schizophrenia patients (Allen et al, 2004(Allen et al, , 2007Ilankovic et al, 2011;Pinheiro et al, 2016), whereas preserved voice discrimination was observed in individuals with high HP (Chhabra et al, 2014).…”

Change in the Neural Response to Auditory Deviance Following Cognitive Therapy for Hallucinations in Patients With Schizophrenia

“…Although also shown with the detection of duration deviants in our combined group analysis, the more reliable improvements in deviance detection with CBTv were observed in response to the pitch deviant, with pMMN being shown to be increased in both sets of analyses along with pitch CD in auditory cortices. Not always associated with auditory hallucinatory experiences, SZ is associated with deficits in the perception of a broad range of auditory features, including pitch discrimination as measured in tone-matching tasks (118). Dependent on the low-level acoustic features or type of complex naturalistic sound, the neural representation and processing of acoustic stimuli is confined to different regions within the human auditory system.…”

Working memory and sensory memory in subclinical high schizotypy: An avenue for understanding schizophrenia?

“…In people with schizophrenia, there are numerous examples of deficits in auditory SM, including impaired pitch discrimination (distinguishing between tones of different pitches [McLachlan et al, 2013]; tone‐pair matching [Rabinowicz et al, 2000]; sound localization [Donde et al, 2020; Donde, Martinez, et al, 2019]; discrimination of intensity, duration and sequences [Schnakenberg Martin et al, 2018]; and auditory scene segregation [Ramage et al, 2012; Weintraub et al, 2012]). Moreover, there is evidence that mismatch negativity (MMN) amplitude is lower in those with schizophrenia, reflective of a general auditory SM deficit (Catts et al, 1995), lower educational achievement before the onset of schizophrenia, worse cognitive symptoms, poorer global function and longer duration of illness (Friedman et al, 2012).…”