Lost in time and space? Multisensory processing of peripersonal space and time perception in people with frequent experiences of depersonalisation.
Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) June 1, 2025 Francesca Ferroni, Edoardo Arcuri, Martina Ardizzi et al. 7 citations
Depersonalisation (DP) involves a distressing feeling of being detached from oneself and a flattened sense of time. This study examined how DP experiences affect perception of peripersonal space (the space near the body) and time. Using an audio-tactile task, no difference in peripersonal space perception was found between people with high versus low DP experiences. A mental time travel task revealed that individuals with high DP experiences performed worse overall at locating events in time relative to their present reference point, while those with low DP experiences showed significant variation in performance for past events. The findings link altered self-awareness to disrupted egocentric spatiotemporal perception.