People with schizotypy have more accurate perception of time than the general population

Understanding how we perceive time can shed light on how we experience the world and ourselves, impacting our consciousness, decision-making, emotions and sense of wellbeing.

Although they share some superficial similarities, schizophrenia and schizotypy are officially classified as distinct psychological conditions.

But individuals with these disorders appear to share an enhanced, more accurate perception of time compared to the general population, thanks to research led by a University of Northampton (UON) academic.

Schizophrenia is a serious mental health condition and affected people experience psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions.

Schizotypy is a less severe personality disorder or traits characterised by odd or eccentric behaviours, beliefs and social difficulties.

For their study, researchers* led by Dr Matthew Hopkins, Lecturer in Evolutionary and Biological Psychology at UON, showed 325 participants with schizotypy two videos – the first of a kitten and the other of the River Nene in Northampton – of different lengths (15, 30 and 45 seconds).

Across these experiments, the researchers found that participants with high schizotypy were more accurate in identifying the kitten video because of the context heavy nature of it.

Dr Hopkins explains: “It’s long been known that people with schizophrenia have a different, more enhanced understanding of time than the general population. Given that schizotypy was, in the past, ‘lumped together’ with schizophrenia, it was assumed that characteristic also existed, but there was no firm evidence of this.

“Memory deficits in schizotypy are like those of schizophrenia, particularly retrospective time perception. These findings could be mapped onto schizophrenia to further disentangle the mechanistic properties of the perception of time in schizophrenic subjects, with possibilities for psychiatric, therapeutic approaches.”

Read the full research paper here.

*The full list of research authors is:

Phil Reed, Swansea University
Irene Reppa, Swansea University
Paul Hitchcott, University of Northampton
Matthew Hopkins, University of Northampton