The robot provocateur forced people to hear non-existent voices, and scientists explored the boundaries of perception.
Swiss scientists have invented a unique method for studying auditory-verbal hallucinations, which allows healthy people to hear non-existent voices. The experiment, described in the journal Psychological Medicine, involved using a robot, "pink noise" and recordings of participants voices.
The study was conducted in the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. 48 healthy volunteers who spoke French and did not know the purpose of the study were exposed to a specially designed robot. Participants were asked to push the robot, which responded by pushing them, creating the illusion of external influence.
To enhance the effect, the researchers used recordings of the voices of the participants themselves saying monosyllabic words with negative overtones, as well as the voices of strangers saying the same words. These recordings were played against a background of pink noise — a sound that is lower in frequency than white noise and is considered more soothing.
In the experiment, participants were asked to press a button when they heard voices in the "pink noise". They then had to describe exactly what they heard, which allowed the researchers to determine whether they were hallucinating their own voice or other people's recordings. Most of the "false alarms" occurred during synchronous aftershocks, and surprisingly, participants were more likely to report hearing recordings of their own voices rather than those of strangers.
Pavo Orepic, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Geneva and co-author of the study, shared with PsyPost that people who were prone to delusional thinking were more likely to hear voices. This supports the theory that phenomena such as hallucinations and delusions can be present in a wide range of phenomena, even in the general population.
The experiment is undoubtedly unusual and blurs the boundaries between classical conditioned reflexes and pareidolia, and while its results don't provide definitive answers, they do highlight that our brains remain a mysterious mechanism capable of both recognizing incredibly subtle patterns and fully imagining them.
Swiss scientists have invented a unique method for studying auditory-verbal hallucinations, which allows healthy people to hear non-existent voices. The experiment, described in the journal Psychological Medicine, involved using a robot, "pink noise" and recordings of participants voices.
The study was conducted in the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. 48 healthy volunteers who spoke French and did not know the purpose of the study were exposed to a specially designed robot. Participants were asked to push the robot, which responded by pushing them, creating the illusion of external influence.
To enhance the effect, the researchers used recordings of the voices of the participants themselves saying monosyllabic words with negative overtones, as well as the voices of strangers saying the same words. These recordings were played against a background of pink noise — a sound that is lower in frequency than white noise and is considered more soothing.
In the experiment, participants were asked to press a button when they heard voices in the "pink noise". They then had to describe exactly what they heard, which allowed the researchers to determine whether they were hallucinating their own voice or other people's recordings. Most of the "false alarms" occurred during synchronous aftershocks, and surprisingly, participants were more likely to report hearing recordings of their own voices rather than those of strangers.
Pavo Orepic, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Geneva and co-author of the study, shared with PsyPost that people who were prone to delusional thinking were more likely to hear voices. This supports the theory that phenomena such as hallucinations and delusions can be present in a wide range of phenomena, even in the general population.
The experiment is undoubtedly unusual and blurs the boundaries between classical conditioned reflexes and pareidolia, and while its results don't provide definitive answers, they do highlight that our brains remain a mysterious mechanism capable of both recognizing incredibly subtle patterns and fully imagining them.
