sensory delusion

   A term used to denote the erroneous conviction that one is experiencing a hallucination, while the verbal report expressing the experience is testimony of a non-perceptual experience such as a thought or a memory. The term sensory delusion is used to express the general suspicion that individuals reporting on hallucinations may not always be experiencing or 'reading off a percept. As pointed out by the American military research psychologists Thomas I. Myers and Donald B. Murphy, the raw material of hallucinations research can be said to consist of linguistic utterances which may or may not refer to perceptual experiences. This point of view is echoed in the work of the British historian of psychiatry German E. Berrios, who conceptualizes hallucinations as "verbal reports of 'sensory' experiences, with or without insight, not vouchsafed by a relevant stimulus." Myers and Murphy were responsible for introducing the notions of * reported visual sensation (RVS), and * reported auditory sensation (RAS), which came to serve as standard jargon in some of the * sensory deprivation studies carried out during the 1960s and early 1970s.

   References

   Fish, F. (1985). Fish's clinical psychopathology. Second edition. Edited by Hamilton, M. Bristol: John Wright and Sons.

   Slade, P.D., Bentall, R.P. (1988). Sensory deception. A scientific analysis of hallucination. London: Johns Hopkins University Press.