Neural correlates of inner speech and auditory verbal hallucinations: a critical review and theoretical integration.

By Simon R. Jones, Charles Fernyhough. 2007

154 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The neuroimaging and neurophysiological literature on inner speech in healthy participants and those who experience auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) is reviewed. AVH-hearers in remission and controls do not differ neurologically on tasks involving low levels of verbal self-monitoring (VSM), such as reciting sentences in inner speech. In contrast, on tasks involving high levels of VSM, such as auditory verbal imagery, AVH-hearers in remission show less activation in areas including the middle and superior temporal gyri. This pattern of findings leads to a conundrum, given that mentation involving low levels of VSM is typically held to form the raw material for AVHs. We address this by noting that existing neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies have been based on unexamined assumptions about the form and developmental significance of inner speech. We set out a Vygotskian approach to AVHs which can account for why they are generally experienced as the voice of another person, with specific acoustic properties, and a tendency to take the form of commands. On this approach, which we argue is consistent with the neural correlates evidence, AVHs result from abnormalities in the transition between condensed and expanded dialogic inner speech. Further potential empirical tests of this model are discussed.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Psychology, Neuroscience

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

In Social Psychology

In Neuroscience

Citations in the corpus

Inner Speech: Development, Cognitive Functions, Phenomenology, and Neurobiology (2015, methodology): “Such studies have been criticized for their lack of ecological validity in eliciting inner speech, and for their failure to recognise the possibility of inner speech continuing during baseline assessments (Jones & Fernyhough, 2007).”
The brain’s conversation with itself: neural substrates of dialogic inner speech (2015, background): “In the context of a growing recognition of social and conversational dimensions of AVH (Bell, 2013; Ford et al., 2014), knowing more about the heterogeneity of inner speech could enhance AVH models (Jones and Fernyhough, 2007).”
Inner experience in the scanner: can high fidelity apprehensions of inner experience be integrated with fMRI? (2014, background): “…and the superior and middle temporal gyri (Price, 2012; Gernsbacher and Kaschak, 2003), with inner speech processes in particular being linked to activation in left IFG and lateral temporal areas (Shergill et al., 2001, 2002; Jones and Fernyhough, 2007; Marvel and Desmond, 2012; Kühn et al., 2013).”
eview hat is that little voice inside my head ? Inner speech henomenology , its role in cognitive performance , and ts relation to self-monitoring (2014, background): “Either because of attributional biases [175], or because the emotion of self-authorship is not felt [131], inner speech is”
The discursive nature of inner speech (2012, background): “…correlates (Ehrich, 2006; Morin, 1993, 2005; Morin & Everett, 1990, 1991; Steels, 2003), inner speech impairments and verbal hallucinations (Fernyhough, 2004; Jones & Fernyhough, 2007; Jones & Fernyhough, 2009), inner speech impairments and autism (Arnott et al., 2010), among other emphases.”
Do we need multiple models of auditory verbal hallucinations? Examining the phenomenological fit of cognitive and neurological models. (2010, background): “This proposal may explain the inconsistent findings of studies of activation in Broca’s area during AVHs.(8) Such inconsistency may be due to such studies involving differing ratios of patients with AVHs associated with intrusive memories of trauma/abuse to patients with more novel AVHs.”
Toward a phenomenology of inner speaking. (2013, unknown): “Jones and Fernyhough (2007) similarly criticized the ecological validity of elicited inner speaking.”
The varieties of inner speech: links between quality of inner speech and psychopathological variables in a sample of young adults. (2011, background): “From other theoretical perspectives, however, it is considered that inner speech has a number of properties that distinguish it from external speech (Jones & Fernyhough, 2007a).”
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Auditory Verbal Hallucinations as Atypical Inner Speech Monitoring, and the Potential of Neurostimulation as a Treatment Option (unknown): “Importantly, this theory relies on inner speech being seen as a covert motor action (Jones and Fernyhough, 2007b), which is supported by the aforementioned subvocalization research.”
Possible genetic and epigenetic links between human inner speech, schizophrenia and altruism. (2012, unknown): “The scheme developed byVygotsky (1962) for the ontogenesis of ‘inner’ speech in children (see also Jones and Fernyhough, 2007) can be transposed to the long-term phylogeny of the human brain.”