Millions used to suffer from this condition:
Posted on 10/24/2007 11:07:52 AM PDT by crazyshrink
Hearing 'messages' embedded in noise could be early sign of schizophrenia New Haven, Conn.—A tendency to extract messages from meaningless noise could be an early sign of schizophrenia, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine researchers.
The study this month in the British Journal of Psychiatry reported on 43 participants diagnosed with “prodromal symptoms”— meaning they exhibited early warning signs of psychosis such as social withdrawal, mild perceptual alterations, or misinterpretation of social cues.
Participants in the study were randomly assigned to take the anti-psychotic medication olanzapine or a placebo, and then symptoms and neuropsychological function were assessed for up to two years.
During the “babble task,” participants listened with headphones to overlapping recordings of six speakers reading neutral texts, which made the words virtually incomprehensible. The participants were asked to repeat any words or phrases that they heard. Only four words—“increase,” “children,” “A-OK,” and “Republican”—were consistently reproduced.
Eighty percent of the participants who “heard” phrases of four or more words in length went on to develop a schizophrenia-related illness during times that they were not taking olanzapine, said the lead author, Ralph Hoffman, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry. In contrast, only six percent of those in the study converted to schizophrenia-related illness if the phrases “heard” were less than three words in length.
“A tendency to extract message-like meaning from meaningless sensory information can, over time, produce a ‘matrix of unreality’ that triggers the initial psychotic phase of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders,” Hoffman said.
He said further research is needed because of the small size of this study. However, if these findings are verified, Hoffman added, they could provide an inexpensive tool for identifying those individuals with early warning signs of schizophrenia who would most likely benefit from preventive drug therapy.
### British Journal of Psychiatry 191: pp 355-356 doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.106.031195
We heard this crap with the Beatles, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath...
When will it end?
I don’t know, there might be something to ... Snakes! SNAKES!
Does this include suspecting one thing is being said when something actually being spoken is difficult to hear? Or just non-speech noise?
$3500 for flowers?
Yeah, I got your matrix of unreality right here, pal.
Well, Doc, this definitely explains the relationship between television and the Democrat vote.
What if they were able to decipher one of the speakers?
They must have subjected the subjects to Hillaryscreech...
A-OK
increase
children
Republican
At the risk of sounding paranoid schizophrenic, I wonder why these words were chosen in this study at the Yale School of Medicine. ; )
Poppycock. They know I’m able to hear the secret government codes, and they are trying to marginalize me.
ha ha - great minds think alike
This supports what I’ve concluded about “white noise/EVP” ghost hunters.
That would explain Jean D’Arc.
Bummer.
When I hear my a-hole neighbor fire up his unmuffled lawn mower at 7 am on Sunday morning....the voices in my head tell me to go over and choke his scrawny little pencil neck.
Where do I check myself in?
Messages embedded in noise? Does Ham Radio cause
schizophrenia?
Isn’t the same thing done when interviewing a patient
exhibiting psychotic symptoms? If the subject develops
a bizaare conclusion when presented with some “neutral”
words, one is more likely to diagnosis schizophrenia.
The same effect may be seen by screening individuals
before they have any signs or symptoms of schizophrenia.
If a young person doesn’t understand words, or misinterprets
rules, etc., isn’t that the same effect?
I would hope that there isn’t some type of serendipitous
confluence of words in the test words used which could create
some type of meaning or understanding
...like in free form poetry. or RAP music.
Good example...
Hurricane 5, New Orleans, flooding, city below sea level,
bad levees, malfunctioning pumps...BUSH’S FAULT(and he
hates black people, and is a blind tool of Halliburton)
Every one hearing “messages” from our politicians “noises “ are nuts too
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