Disordered recognition and perception of human faces in acute schizophrenia and experimental psychosis.
A Harrington, G Oepen, M Spitzer
Comprehensive Psychiatry September 1, 1989 DOI: 10.1016/0010-440x(89)90003-5 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mescaline |
| Keywords | Face Humans Agnosia Psychoses, substance-induced Acute disease Delusions Body image Form perception Optical illusions Pattern recognition, visual Perceptual distortion Narcissism Neuropsychological tests Schizophrenic psychology Adult Female |
| Key points | Argues that three disturbances of facial perception in acute schizophrenia and mescaline-induced psychosis—"affective prosopagnosia," "physiognomization" of the environment, and the "mirror phenomenon"—may be related in ways neuropsychology can illuminate, while proposing no final neurobiological solution and discussing when neuropsychological and hermeneutic approaches should be combined. |
Abstract
Three disorders of facial recognition and perception in acute schizophrenia and mescaline-induced psychosis are described and illustrated using original clinical and experimental material: "affective prosopagnosia" or stress-related dysfunctional face recognition; "physiognomization" of the environment or persistent illusions and hallucinations of nonspecific faces; and the "mirror phenomenon" or the experience of inner alienation from one's reflected face, which is perceived as independently alive, sinister, and generally physically distorted. It is proposed that neuropsychology suggests relationships between these phenomena that might otherwise be less apparent. No final neurobiological solution to the problem of dysfunctional facial perception and recognition in psychosis is presented, but various insights and suggestive models from the neurosciences are discussed. Attention is also paid to the conditions under which one might need to combine neuropsychological approaches with hermeneutically oriented analyses.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mescaline, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Schizophrenia: A New Approach. II. Result of a Year's Research | 1954 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Thought insertion as a self-disturbance: An integration of predictive coding and phenomenological approaches | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Entactogens: How the Name for a Novel Class of Psychoactive Agents Originated | 2022 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Steric and Electronic Relationships among Some Hallucinogenic Compounds | 1970 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| EFFECT OF DRUGS One individual | 1952 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | n = 1 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 4
- Strange-face-in-the-mirror illusions: specific effects on derealization, depersonalization, and dissociative identity Journal of Trauma & Dissociation April 3, 2023
- Exploration of Self-Consciousness through Self and Other Recognition in the Mirror: Towards New Perspectives in Schizophrenia Neuropsychiatry 2018
- Reframing schizophrenia and autism as self-consciousness disorders associating a deficit of theory of mind and empathy with social communication impairments. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews August 1, 2019
- A case of persistent visual hallucinations of faces following LSD abuse: a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging study. Neurocase April 2010