Distinct processing of ambiguous speech in people with non-clinical auditory verbal hallucinations.

Auditory verbal hallucinations (hearing voices) are typically associated with psychosis, but a minority of the general population also experience them frequently and without distress. Such 'non-clinical' experiences offer a rare and unique opportunity to study hallucinations apart from confounding clinical factors, thus allowing for the identification of symptom-specific mechanisms. Recent theories propose that hallucinations result from an imbalance of prior expectation and sensory information, but whether such an imbalance also influences auditory-perceptual processes remains unknown.

Feel the Noise: Relating Individual Differences in Auditory Imagery to the Structure and Function of Sensorimotor Systems.

Humans can generate mental auditory images of voices or songs, sometimes perceiving them almost as vividly as perceptual experiences. The functional networks supporting auditory imagery have been described, but less is known about the systems associated with interindividual differences in auditory imagery. Combining voxel-based morphometry and fMRI, we examined the structural basis of interindividual differences in how auditory images are subjectively perceived, and explored associations between auditory imagery, sensory-based processing, and visual imagery.

Neural correlates of sublexical processing in phonological working memory.

This study investigated links between working memory and speech processing systems. We used delayed pseudoword repetition in fMRI to investigate the neural correlates of sublexical structure in phonological working memory (pWM). We orthogonally varied the number of syllables and consonant clusters in auditory pseudowords and measured the neural responses to these manipulations under conditions of covert rehearsal (Experiment 1).