I overthink—Therefore I am not: An active inference account of altered sense of self and agency in depersonalisation disorder

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

This paper considers the phenomenology of depersonalisation disorder, in relation to predictive processing and its associated pathophysiology. To do this, we first establish a few mechanistic tenets of predictive processing that are necessary to talk about phenomenal transparency, mental action, and self as subject. We briefly review the important role of ‘predicting precision’ and how this affords mental action and the loss of phenomenal transparency. We then turn to sensory attenuation and the phenomenal consequences of (pathophysiological) failures to attenuate or modulate sensory precision. We then consider this failure in the context of depersonalisation disorder. The key idea here is that depersonalisation disorder reflects the remarkable capacity to explain perceptual engagement with the world via the hypothesis that “I am an embodied perceiver, but I am not in control of my perception”. We suggest that individuals with depersonalisation may believe that ‘another agent’ is controlling their thoughts, perceptions or actions, while maintaining full insight that the ‘other agent’ is ‘me’ (the self). Finally, we rehearse the predictions of this formal analysis, with a special focus on the psychophysical and physiological abnormalities that may underwrite the phenomenology of depersonalisation.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number103320
Number of pages14
JournalConsciousness and cognition
Volume101 (2022)
Early online date28 Apr 2022
Publication statusPublished - May 2022
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 35490544

Keywords

Keywords

  • Active inference, Agency, Depersonalisation, Predictive processing, Sense of self, Sensory attenuation

Library keywords