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What can hallucinations tell about our sense of self and consciousness? Dr Clara Humpston, Department of Psychology
Event details
York Drug Science Society event
In this talk, Dr. Humpston will start by addressing a crucial question: what are hallucinations? The traditional definition usually centres around 'perceptions without external stimulus', for example, hearing voices when no one is speaking. How does this bizarre yet common phenomenon happen, and do they always mean that something has gone wrong in the brain? What can hallucinations teach us about our senses of self, or even our conscious experience as a whole?
Dr. Humpston will challenge the conventional notion of hallucinations as strictly or necessarily sensory phenomena. Instead, she will put forward the argument that hallucinations are better conceptualised as 'convictions of perception' with a loss of what may be termed 'first-personal authority' over thinking processes. She will discuss hallucinations in the context of pathological states such as psychosis, as well as hallucinations in those without a need for care. Lastly, she will touch upon the pharmacology of hallucinations, such as those induced by psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs.
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About the speaker
Dr. Clara Humpston has a background in both psychopharmacology and psychiatric research methods. She was awarded her PhD on the cognitive neuropsychiatry of schizotypy and first episode psychosis in Professor David Linden’s lab from Cardiff University in February 2018, focusing on predictive processing and source monitoring frameworks. She began her first postdoctoral position in 2017 at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London working on chronotherapeutics for the rapid treatment of depression, before taking up a post of Research Fellow at the Institute of Mental Health, University of Birmingham in 2019. She joined the Department of Psychology as a Lecturer in Mental Health at the University of York in April 2022.
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