Electromyography Study of Lip Muscles During Auditory Verbal Hallucinations Without Subvocalization in Patients With Schizophrenia

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) are speech perceptions in the absence of a relevant external stimulation. Some accounts of AVHs claim that a deficit in inner speech monitoring would cause the verbal thoughts of the patient to be perceived as external voices resulting in AVHs.

In order to examine whether AVHs correspond to self-generated inner speech, the present study aims at collecting speech muscle activity during covert AVHs (without articulation), overt speech and rest. Surface electromyography (sEMG) is used on schizophrenia patients and control subjects to detect any speech muscle activity during AVH.