MRI scans confirmed that the region of the brain responsible for monitoring and attention responded better in “voice-hearers”.

Up to 15 per cent of the population hear voices when no one is speaking, although only a fraction of these suffer to a clinically problematic extent, many with linked diagnoses such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

The research team believe their discovery of an association between auditory verbal hallucinations and better hearing for real-world language will one day lead to treatments for some mental health problems.

Published in the journal Brain, the study involved 17 participants with a history of voice hearing and 17 without.

They were played distorted speech known as sine waves, “alien-like” noises which can normally be understood only if a hearer is told to listen out for certain words.