Relationship of absorption, depersonalisation, and self-focused attention in subjects with and without hallucination proneness

Abstract

Introduction

The purpose of this work was to study the relationship of absorption, depersonalisation, and self-focused attention in subjects prone to hallucination.

Methods

A sample of 218 healthy subjects was given the LSHS-R Hallucination Scale (Bentall & Slade, 1985). Three groups, subjects with high, medium, and low hallucination proneness, were formed from this sample. The Tellegen Absorption Scale (TAS; Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974), Cambridge Depersonalisation Scale (CDS; Sierra & Berrios, 2000), and Self-Absorption Scale (SAS; McKenzie & Hoyle, 2008) were also given to all the participants. The Metacognitions Questionnaire (MCQ-30; Wells & Cartwright-Hatton, 2004) was used as a covariant to control for the effects of emotional vulnerability on the dependent variables studied.

Results

The results showed that subjects highly prone to hallucinations had significantly higher absorption, depersonalisation, and self-focused attention than the subjects in the other two groups. A hierarchical regression analysis showed that absorption and depersonalisation predict hallucination proneness.

Conclusions

The importance of the absorption, depersonalisation, and self-focused attention variables for understanding the aetiology of hallucinations is discussed in the Conclusions, where some approaches to its treatment are also suggested.

Keywords:

• Absorption
• Depersonalisation
• Hallucination proneness
• Hallucinations
• Psychosis
• Self-focused attention

This work was done in the framework of research project PSI2009-09453, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology.