Self-Other Voice Discrimination Task: A - Neuropsychological Tool For Clinical Assessment of Self-Related Deficits

Background Deficits in self are commonly described through different neuro-pathologies, based on clinical evaluations and experimental paradigms. However, currently available approaches lack appropriate clinical validation, making objective evaluation and discrimination of self-related deficits challenging. Methods We applied a statistical standardized method to assess the clinical discriminatory role of a Self-Other Voice Discrimination (SOVD) task. This task, validated experimentally as a marker for self-related deficits, was administered to 17 patients eligible for neurosurgery due to focal hemispheric brain tumors or epileptic lesions. Results The clinical discriminatory capacity of the SOVD task was evident in three patients who exhibited impairments for self-voice perception that could not be predicted by other neuropsychological performances. Impairments in other-voice perception were linked to inhibitory neuropsychological alterations, suggesting a potential association with executive deficits in voice recognition. Conclusions This exploratory study highlights the clinical discriminatory potential of the SOVD task and suggests that it could complement the standard neuropsychological assessment, paving the way for enhanced diagnoses and tailored treatments for self-related deficits.