Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences - Theses

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End date: 2019 × Start date: 2010 × Type: PhD thesis × Subject: at risk mental state × Subject: psychosis ×

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    Cognitive processing associated with hallucinations for At Risk Mental State
    Leicester, Steven Bryce ( 2013)
    To date there has been limited investigation of cognitive factors associated with the experience of hallucinations for individuals identified as being at Ultra-High Risk (UHR) for psychosis. This study is the first to comprehensively examine the relationship between auditory hallucinations within a UHR population and prominent cognitive models of perceptual disturbances. Source monitoring, appraisal of cognitive intrusions and metacognition were compared between three groups: a UHR group reporting auditory hallucinations, a UHR comparison group without hallucinations and a non-patient comparison group. The UHR group reporting auditory hallucinations displayed distinct deficits in source monitoring and appraisal of cognitive intrusions, indicating that biases in cognitive processing appear to be associated with the development of hallucinations for UHR populations. Additionally, follow up of the UHR participants was conducted in order to examine the association between cognitive processing biases and persistence of hallucinations. Source monitoring deficits as well as beliefs about the omnipotence of voices were strongly associated with the persistence of hallucinations over the follow up period. This is the first study to demonstrate that distinct cognitive biases are associated with the development of hallucinations during the UHR period. These results provide evidence that cognitive biases may contribute to the emergence of hallucinations, prior to the onset of frank psychosis.