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Explaining Schizophrenia: Auditory Verbal Hallucination and Self‐Monitoring
Author(s) -
WU WAYNE
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0017.2011.01436.x
Subject(s) - psychology , auditory hallucination , phenomenology (philosophy) , cognitive psychology , automaticity , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , argument (complex analysis) , psychosis , cognition , neuroscience , epistemology , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , psychiatry
Do self‐monitoring accounts, a dominant account of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, explain auditory verbal hallucination? In this essay, I argue that the account fails to answer crucial questions any explanation of auditory verbal hallucination must address. Where the account provides a plausible answer, I make the case for an alternative explanation: auditory verbal hallucination is not the result of a failed control mechanism, namely failed self‐monitoring, but, rather, of the persistent automaticity of auditory experience of a voice. My argument emphasizes the importance of careful examination of phenomenology as providing substantive constraints on causal models of the positive symptoms in schizophrenia.