Relatively little is known about the perceptual characteristics of
voice-hallucinations in congenitally deaf people who use lip-reading or
sign language as their preferred means of communication.



It is suggested that a failure in subvocal articulation processes may
account for voice-hallucinations in both hearing and deaf people but
that the distinct way in which hallucinations are experienced may be due
to differences in a sensory feedback component, which is influenced by
both auditory deprivation and language modality.



There is scope for exploring how spoken and sign language
subvocalizations are represented in the mind and the extent to which
these representations are independent of, or dependent on, language
modality. In particular, it is not known how far auditory-motor
representations of speech involve a visual component, or whether hearing
people ever experience visual imagery of ''voice''-articulations. The
diverse phenomena observed in the literature pertaining to deaf people
suggest that language representations may contain multifaceted sensory
information.







The Perceptual Characteristics of Voice-Hallucinations in Deaf People:
Insights into the Nature of Subvocal Thought and Sensory Feedback Loops

Joanna R. Atkinson

Schizophrenia Bulletin Advance Access published March 1, 2006





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