[Altered perception of temporal relations in schizophrenic psychoses]

Basic perceptual skills involving the central nervous system require the orderly temporal integration of internal as well as external information. Current research in schizophrenia increasingly centers on the accompanying neurocognitive deficits. In association with schizophrenic psychoses, there have been frequent reports of altered temporal processes, but explicit research on the perception of temporal relationship is still rare. Using concrete operationalized neuropsychological procedures, the present pilot study addressed the question whether schizophrenic patients (n = 27) differ from a healthy control group (n = 18) concerning their ability to judge correctly the temporal order of visual stimuli. We found a significant impairment in basal temporal perception among patients. Moderating variables such as antipsychotic medication, attention deficits, or motivation effects did not appear to be essential explanatory factors for this finding. Thus, our findings indicate a fundamental disturbance in the temporal coordination of neuronal network functions in association with schizophrenic psychoses and are in line with neurophysiological, neuroanatomical, and neuropsychological overlappings of schizophrenia and temporal perception.