The Science of Hearing Voices

[KeyserXSoze]

Source

Why 'imaginary voices' are male
By Sean Coughlan
BBC News education reporter

A university research team says it has discovered why most people "hearing voices" in hallucinations say they hear male voices.
Dr Michael Hunter's research at the University of Sheffield says that male voices are less complex to produce than female.

As such, when the brain spontaneously produces its own "voices", a male voice is more likely to have been generated.

Among both men and women, 71% of such "false" voices are male.

'False perception'

"Psychiatrists believe that these auditory hallucinations are caused when the brain spontaneously activates, creating a false perception of a voice," says Professor Hunter of the university's psychiatry department.

"The reason these voices are usually male could be explained by the fact that the female voice is so much more complex that the brain would find it much harder to create a false female voice accurately than a false male voice," he says.

Such imaginary voices are typically likely to be middle-aged and carry "derogatory" messages.

The research, published in NeuroImage, shows how the brain interprets information from human voices - and how female and male voices activate different parts of the brain.

"The female voice is more complex than the male voice, due to differences in the size and shape of the vocal cords and larynx between women and men, and also due to women having greater natural 'melody' in their voices.

"This causes a more complex range of sound frequencies than in a male voice," says Professor Hunter.

These gender differences in voices trigger responses in different parts of brain - and as the male version is simpler, both men and women who hear voices, are on average more likely to produce a male-sounding voice.

The research says that "auditory verbal hallucinations" are a symptom of schizophrenia and "occur in 40% to 60% of patients who suffer from the condition".

 

[Rubyait]

But i hear female voices all the time, nag nag nag, do this do that.Oh hold on a sec that must be the misses.

 

[Anonymous]

I have to agree.

My father suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. He doesnt talk about the voices anymore (although it is obvious they are still there to some extent) but he always used to say "he said I wasn't allowed..." or "he said it was best...."

I cannot recall my father ever saying "she said..."

 

[escargot]

Don't we have people in Edinburgh who could pop along to this for us?

Researchers investigate what it means to 'hear voices'

Children will often have imaginary friends, the recently bereaved sometimes hear their loved ones and for some people voices in their head can be a horrible, destabilising ordeal.

The full gamut of experiences are to be explored in detail at this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival, in a project investigating why and how people hear voices when no one is speaking.

Researchers from Durham University's Hearing the Voice project will be at the festival asking both readers and writers what their experiences are. There will also be interviews, panel discussions and workshops delving into what is still a little-talked-about subject.

 

[OneWingedBird]

Did I miss the memo about it being Fortean Thread necromancy weekend? :lol: