ABSTRACT
This chapter considers contemporary approaches to the problem of reality monitoring and how an understanding of the process may allow us to explain certain psychiatric symptoms. The interpretation of the symbolic distance effect as arising from Paivio’s “imaginal” system, wherein are stored concrete object properties, is slightly muddied by the observation that much more abstract judgements about objects are also made more quickly when probed by pictures rather than words. Mintz and Alpert suggested that hallucinations in schizophrenia might arise as a result of failed reality monitoring combined with vivid imagery. They screened hallucinating schizophrenic patients, non-hallucinating patients, and normal controls on Barber and Calverley’s “White Christmas” test. Confusions between the reality and the imagination can occur without any more deep-rooted mental disorder, as evidenced by anecdotal experiences of people under the influence of the psychoactive drugs, or extreme fatigue.
