Schizophrenia refers to a disorder or a spectrum of conditions where patients tend to hallucinate or have delusions. Their perception of reality is altered as they have a “disconnection from reality” which makes the patients judge the passage of time differently.
Different ways of perceiving time exist. In contrast to implicit timing, which occurs automatically whenever sensory input is temporally structured, explicit timing entails an intentional estimation of a definite length of time. Timing intervals in the subsecond range are generally accomplished via automatic timing, which does not require attentional or cognitive regulation. The foundation of cognitively regulated timing is higher-order cognitive processes engaged for longer periods, like attention and memory. Using perceptual discrimination, perceptual timing involves duration estimates, whereas using a motor reaction, motor timing involves duration estimations. Studies have shown that due to disruptions in time perception, hallucinations are triggered and circadian rhythm is varied.
A meta-analysis study on time perception in schizophrenia patients studied subjects based on 2 parameters, the first one was time perception which involved patients’ judgement of time intervals and the other was temporal processing which was based on how patients determined the relative timing between two events.
The study revealed that at least for outlier-corrected data, the task had an impact on how well people with schizophrenia perceived time accurately. Compared to controls, people with schizophrenia tended to overestimate the length of time in verbal time estimation, and they significantly underproduced the length of time in time production tasks. This pattern of effects suggests either a quickened internal clock in patients or a different representation of length in long-term memory, as was previously mentioned. Compared to healthy controls, those with schizophrenia underestimated duration, judging the comparison durations as brief more frequently than did controls (corresponding to a higher bisection point in patients).
Overall, the time perception and temporal processing order were severely impaired in schizophrenic patients. Their sensitivity to the duration of time intervals subsided and instead, overestimation and acceleration of time were seen as prominent tendencies. Further studies are yet to be made to get a better idea about the pathways involved in the control of circadian rhythm. More research is also required to find new cognitive therapies that could treat this condition in such patients.
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