Abstract
Schizophrenia has been described as a psychiatric condition characterized by deficits in one's own and others' face recognition, as well as by a disturbed sense of body-ownership. To date, no study has integrated these two lines of research with the aim of investigating Enfacement Illusion (EI) proneness in schizophrenia. To accomplish this goal, the classic EI protocol was adapted to test the potential plasticity of both Self-Other and Other-Other boundaries. Results showed that EI induced the expected malleability of Self-Other boundary among both controls and patients. Interestingly, for the first time, the present study demonstrates that also the Other-Other boundary was influenced by EI. Furthermore, comparing the two groups, the malleability of the Other-Other boundary showed an opposite modulation. These results suggest that, instead of greater Self-Other boundary plasticity, a qualitative difference can be detected between schizophrenia patients and controls in the malleability of the Other-Other boundary. The present study points out a totally new aspect about body-illusions and schizophrenia disorder, demonstrating that EI is not only confined to self-sphere but it also affects the way we discriminate others, representing a potential crucial aspect in the social domain.
Highlights
Schizophrenia has been described as a psychiatric condition characterized by deficits in one's own and others' face recognition, as well as by a disturbed sense of body-ownership
Post-hoc comparisons conducted on the significant interaction Morphing by Stimulation revealed the expected Enfacement Illusion (EI) effect for the Self and not for Other only in the Congruent stimulation
The present study investigated, for the first time, EI proneness in schizophrenia
Summary
Schizophrenia has been described as a psychiatric condition characterized by deficits in one's own and others' face recognition, as well as by a disturbed sense of body-ownership. No study has integrated these two lines of research with the aim of investigating Enfacement Illusion (EI) proneness in schizophrenia To accomplish this goal, the classic EI protocol was adapted to test the potential plasticity of both Self-Other and OtherOther boundaries. Assuming selfhood as a multi-layered concept, the phenomenological approach (Parnas, 2000; Parnas and Handest, 2003) attributes the core aberration of schizophrenia, vividly defined by Kraepelin (1919) as an “orchestra without a conductor”, to the most basic level of selfhood, the ‘minimal self’(Sass and Parnas, 2003) In this view, the disruption of the basic sense of self and of the implicit bodily functioning represents the clear manifestations of a disturbed bodily self, or disembodiment (Fuchs and Schlimme, 2009). Assuming the self specificity of the bodyillusions (Tsakiris, 2008), at the moment no study has investigated the potential effect of EI on the malleability of the Other-Other boundary
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