echo of reading

   Also known as reading echo, and repetition of reading. All three terms refer to a variant of * Gedankenlautwerden in which the reading of words or sentences is accompanied by an audible echo of those same words or sentences. Echo of reading is usually classified as a type of *verbal auditory hallucination (VAH). Although the phenomenon features in many of the classic textbooks of psychiatry, it would seem that the first empirical study of the subject did not appear until 1933. In that year the Swiss psychiatrist Ferdinand Morel (1888-1957) published a study which suggests that the perceived 'echo' either precedes or accompanies the conscious visual perception of words and sentences, and that written words that cannot not be pronounced by the test person tend to be omitted from the perceived 'echo'. Morel also notes that many individuals familiar with this symptom are able to suppress it by holding their breath, immobilizing their lips, or reading out loud. Because

   References

   Meehan, M.C. (1963). Echo of reading: Impersonal projection in schizophrenia. Psychiatric Quarterly, 16, 156-166.

   Morel, F. (1933). l'Écho de la lecture. Contribution à l'étude des hallucinations auditives verbales. l'Encéphale, 28, 169-183.