Resampling (Narrative) Stream of Consciousness: Mind Wandering, Inner Speech, and Reading as Reversed Introspection (2022)
Journal Article
Bernini, M., & Fernyhough, C. (2022). Resampling (Narrative) Stream of Consciousness: Mind Wandering, Inner Speech, and Reading as Reversed Introspection. MFS: Modern Fiction Studies, 68(4), 639-667. https://doi.org/10.1353/mfs.2022.0045

This article promotes the idea that current cognitive models of mind wandering and inner speech can help us better understanding the phenomenological constituents of what Joyce calls “the mystery of the conscious” as simulated by modernist literary i... Read More about Resampling (Narrative) Stream of Consciousness: Mind Wandering, Inner Speech, and Reading as Reversed Introspection.

Voice-hearing across the continuum: a phenomenology of spiritual voices (2022)
Journal Article
Moseley, P., Powell, A., Woods, A., Fernyhough, C., & Alderson-Day, B. (2022). Voice-hearing across the continuum: a phenomenology of spiritual voices. Schizophrenia Bulletin: The Journal of Psychoses and Related Disorders, 48(5), 1066-1074. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbac054

Background and Hypothesis: Voice-hearing in clinical and nonclinical groups has previously been compared using standardized assessments of psychotic experiences. Findings from several studies suggest that nonclinical voice-hearing is distinguished by... Read More about Voice-hearing across the continuum: a phenomenology of spiritual voices.

Managing Unusual Sensory Experiences in People with First-Episode Psychosis (MUSE FEP): a study protocol for a single-blind parallel-group randomised controlled feasibility trial (2022)
Journal Article
Dudley, R., Dodgson, G., Common, S., O'Grady, L., Watson, F., Gibbs, C., …Aynsworth, C. (2022). Managing Unusual Sensory Experiences in People with First-Episode Psychosis (MUSE FEP): a study protocol for a single-blind parallel-group randomised controlled feasibility trial. BMJ Open, 12(5), Article e061827. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-061827

Introduction Hallucinations (hearing or seeing things that others do not) are a common feature of psychosis, causing significant distress and disability. Existing treatments such as cognitive–behavioural therapy for psychosis (CBTp) have modest benef... Read More about Managing Unusual Sensory Experiences in People with First-Episode Psychosis (MUSE FEP): a study protocol for a single-blind parallel-group randomised controlled feasibility trial.

Varieties of felt presence? Three surveys of presence phenomena and their relations to psychopathology (2022)
Journal Article
Alderson-Day, B., Moseley, P., Mitrenga, K., Moffatt, J., Lee, R., Foxwell, J., …Fernyhough, C. (2023). Varieties of felt presence? Three surveys of presence phenomena and their relations to psychopathology. Psychological Medicine, 53(8), 3692-3700. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0033291722000344

Background Experiences of felt presence (FP) are well documented in neurology, neuropsychology and bereavement research, but systematic research in relation to psychopathology is limited. FP is a feature of sensorimotor disruption in psychosis, hypna... Read More about Varieties of felt presence? Three surveys of presence phenomena and their relations to psychopathology.

Continuities and Discontinuities in the Cognitive Mechanisms Associated With Clinical and Nonclinical Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (2022)
Journal Article
Moseley, P., Alderson-Day, B., Common, S., Dodgson, G., Lee, R., Mitrenga, K., …Fernyhough, C. (2022). Continuities and Discontinuities in the Cognitive Mechanisms Associated With Clinical and Nonclinical Auditory Verbal Hallucinations. Clinical Psychological Science, https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026211059802

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) are typically associated with schizophrenia but also occur in individuals without any need for care (nonclinical voice hearers [NCVHs]). Cognitive models of AVHs posit potential biases in source monitoring, top-d... Read More about Continuities and Discontinuities in the Cognitive Mechanisms Associated With Clinical and Nonclinical Auditory Verbal Hallucinations.

Managing unusual sensory experiences: A feasibility trial in an At Risk Mental States for psychosis group (2020)
Journal Article
Dodgson, G., Aynsworth, C., Mitrenga, K. J., Gibbs, C., Patton, V., Fernyhough, C., …Common, S. (2021). Managing unusual sensory experiences: A feasibility trial in an At Risk Mental States for psychosis group. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 94(3), 481 - 503. https://doi.org/10.1111/papt.12323

Objectives To conduct a feasibility study on a new, tablet-delivered treatment for unusual sensory experiences in service-users with an At Risk Mental States for psychosis. Design A mixed method design was employed, using content analysis to investig... Read More about Managing unusual sensory experiences: A feasibility trial in an At Risk Mental States for psychosis group.

Tailoring cognitive behavioural therapy to subtypes of voice-hearing using a novel tabletised manual: a feasibility study (2020)
Journal Article
Dodgson, G., Alderson-Day, B., Smailes, D., Ryles, F., Mayer, C., Glen-Davison, J., …Fernyhough, C. (2021). Tailoring cognitive behavioural therapy to subtypes of voice-hearing using a novel tabletised manual: a feasibility study. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 49(3), 287-301. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1352465820000661

Background: Cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis (CBTp) is a recommended treatment for psychotic experiences, but its effectiveness has been questioned. One way of addressing this may be to tailor therapy materials to the phenomenology of spec... Read More about Tailoring cognitive behavioural therapy to subtypes of voice-hearing using a novel tabletised manual: a feasibility study.

Inner experience differs in rumination and distraction without a change in electromyographical correlates of inner speech (2020)
Journal Article
Moffatt, J., Mitrenga, K. J., Alderson-Day, B., Moseley, P., & Fernyhough, C. (2020). Inner experience differs in rumination and distraction without a change in electromyographical correlates of inner speech. PLoS ONE, 15(9), Article e0238920. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238920

Ruminative thought is a style of thinking which involves repetitively focusing upon one’s own negative mood, its causes and its consequences. The negative effects of rumination are well-documented, but comparatively little is known about how ruminati... Read More about Inner experience differs in rumination and distraction without a change in electromyographical correlates of inner speech.

Processing Speech and Thoughts during Silent Reading: Direct Reference Effects for Speech by Fictional Characters in Voice-Selective Auditory Cortex and a Theory-of-Mind Network (2020)
Journal Article
Alderson-Day, B., Moffatt, J., Bernini, M., Mitrenga, K., Yao, B., & Fernyhough, C. (2020). Processing Speech and Thoughts during Silent Reading: Direct Reference Effects for Speech by Fictional Characters in Voice-Selective Auditory Cortex and a Theory-of-Mind Network. The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 32(9), 1637-1653. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01571

Stories transport readers into vivid imaginative worlds, but understanding how readers create such worlds—populating them with characters, objects, and events—presents serious challenges across disciplines. Auditory imagery is thought to play a promi... Read More about Processing Speech and Thoughts during Silent Reading: Direct Reference Effects for Speech by Fictional Characters in Voice-Selective Auditory Cortex and a Theory-of-Mind Network.

‘I’ve learned I need to treat my characters like people’: Varieties of agency and interaction in Writers’ experiences of their Characters’ Voices (2020)
Journal Article
Foxwell, J., Alderson-Day, B., Fernyhough, C., & Woods, A. (2020). ‘I’ve learned I need to treat my characters like people’: Varieties of agency and interaction in Writers’ experiences of their Characters’ Voices. Consciousness and Cognition, 79, Article 102901. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2020.102901

Writers often report vivid experiences of hearing characters talking to them, talking back to them, and exhibiting independence and autonomy. However, systematic empirical studies of this phenomenon are almost non-existent, and as a result little is... Read More about ‘I’ve learned I need to treat my characters like people’: Varieties of agency and interaction in Writers’ experiences of their Characters’ Voices.

Imaginary companions, inner speech and auditory verbal hallucinations: What are the relations? (2019)
Journal Article
Fernyhough, C., Watson, A., Bernini, M., Moseley, P., & Alderson-Day, B. (2019). Imaginary companions, inner speech and auditory verbal hallucinations: What are the relations?. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, Article 1665. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01665

Interacting with imaginary companions (ICs) is now considered a natural part of childhood for many children, and has been associated with a range of positive developmental outcomes. Recent research has explored how the phenomenon of ICs in childhood... Read More about Imaginary companions, inner speech and auditory verbal hallucinations: What are the relations?.

Reading Margery Kempe’s inner voices (2017)
Journal Article
Saunders, C., & Fernyhough, C. (2017). Reading Margery Kempe’s inner voices. postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies, 8(2), 209-217. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-017-0051-5

This article draws on research from the major collaborative research project Hearing the Voice, based at Durham University, to reconsider and foreground Margery Kempe’s inner voices, and hence, to return to an emphasis on inner, spiritual experience... Read More about Reading Margery Kempe’s inner voices.

Uncharted features and dynamics of reading: Voices, characters, and crossing of experiences (2017)
Journal Article
Alderson-Day, B., Bernini, M., & Fernyhough, C. (2017). Uncharted features and dynamics of reading: Voices, characters, and crossing of experiences. Consciousness and Cognition, 49, 98-109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2017.01.003

Readers often describe vivid experiences of voices and characters in a manner that has been likened to hallucination. Little is known, however, of how common such experiences are, nor the individual differences they may reflect. Here we present the r... Read More about Uncharted features and dynamics of reading: Voices, characters, and crossing of experiences.

Experiences of hearing voices: analysis of a novel phenomenological survey (2015)
Journal Article
Woods, A., Jones, N., Alderson-Day, B., Callard, F., & Fernyhough, C. (2015). Experiences of hearing voices: analysis of a novel phenomenological survey. The Lancet Psychiatry, 2(4), 323-331. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2215-0366%2815%2900006-1

Background: Auditory hallucinations—or voices—are a common feature of many psychiatric disorders and are also experienced by individuals with no psychiatric history. Understanding of the variation in subjective experiences of hallucination is central... Read More about Experiences of hearing voices: analysis of a novel phenomenological survey.

Culture and Hallucinations: Overview and Future Directions (2014)
Journal Article
Larøi, F., Luhrmann, T., Bell, V., Christian, W., Deshpande, S., Fernyhough, C., …Woods, A. (2014). Culture and Hallucinations: Overview and Future Directions. Schizophrenia Bulletin: The Journal of Psychoses and Related Disorders, 40(Suppl 4), S213-S220. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbu012

A number of studies have explored hallucinations as complex experiences involving interactions between psychological, biological, and environmental factors and mechanisms. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has focused on the role of culture i... Read More about Culture and Hallucinations: Overview and Future Directions.

Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Phenomenology of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (2014)
Journal Article
Woods, A., Jones, N., Bernini, M., Callard, F., Alderson-Day, B., Badcock, J., …Fernyhough, C. (2014). Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Phenomenology of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations. Schizophrenia Bulletin: The Journal of Psychoses and Related Disorders, 40(Suppl 4), S246-S254. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbu003

Despite the recent proliferation of scientific, clinical, and narrative accounts of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs), the phenomenology of voice hearing remains opaque and undertheorized. In this article, we outline an interdisciplinary approach... Read More about Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Phenomenology of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations.

Report on the 2nd International Consortium on Hallucination Research: Evolving Directions and Top-10 “Hot Spots” in Hallucination Research (2013)
Journal Article
Waters, F., Woods, A., & Fernyhough, C. (2014). Report on the 2nd International Consortium on Hallucination Research: Evolving Directions and Top-10 “Hot Spots” in Hallucination Research. Schizophrenia Bulletin: The Journal of Psychoses and Related Disorders, 40(1), 24-27. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbt167

This article presents a report on the 2nd meeting of the International Consortium on Hallucination Research, held on September 12th and 13th 2013 at Durham University, UK. Twelve working groups involving specialists in each area presented their findi... Read More about Report on the 2nd International Consortium on Hallucination Research: Evolving Directions and Top-10 “Hot Spots” in Hallucination Research.