articleScienceAug 11, 2017Closed access

Pavlovian conditioning–induced hallucinations result from overweighting of perceptual priors

Yale University · Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati · +5 more institutions

PubMed
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Abstract

Some people hear voices that others do not, but only some of those people seek treatment. Using a Pavlovian learning task, we induced conditioned hallucinations in four groups of people who differed orthogonally in their voice-hearing and treatment-seeking statuses. People who hear voices were significantly more susceptible to the effect. Using functional neuroimaging and computational modeling of perception, we identified processes that differentiated voice-hearers from non-voice-hearers and treatment-seekers from non-treatment-seekers and characterized a brain circuit that mediated the conditioned hallucinations. These data demonstrate the profound and sometimes pathological impact of top-down cognitive…

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738
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Authors

3

Topics & keywords

Keywords
  • Hallucinating
  • Stimulus (psychology)
  • Psychology
  • Perception
  • Classical conditioning
  • Neuroimaging
  • Neuroscience
  • Auditory hallucination
UN Sustainable Development Goals
  • Good health and well-being
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