Distortions in the automatic sense of time may be linked to disturbances in the minimal self in schizophrenia, but timing deficits are hard to measure objectively. This case report describes AF, a 22-year-old man with schizophrenia and no antipsychotic medication, who shows few symptoms and normal cognition but high levels of minimal self disorders. In a variable foreperiod task, AF preserved the ability to distinguish time intervals but had difficulty using the passage of time to anticipate a visual stimulus and struggled to adapt to changing time delays. The impairments were large enough to detect at the individual level. Results suggest that exploring timing deficits individually is feasible and may relate to self disorders.
Stabilized patients with schizophrenia can expect well-learned sensory signals and react to unusual events to some extent, but those who report feeling not immersed in the world (a measure of minimal self disorders) do not benefit from the passage of time to react faster. In a motor task, patients' feeling of control drops as soon as an imperceptible delay is introduced in haptic feedback, whereas controls tolerate such delays. Patients also have difficulty adjusting sensory anticipation when feedback is delayed. The results suggest a link between disrupted time expectation and minimal self disorders; fragile time expectations may contribute to a sense of discontinuity that disrupts bodily signals and the sense of self.