Analysis of Spatial Perception

The perception of space has aroused the interest of philosophers and psychiatrists from the very beginning of the phenomenological tradition. The subjective perception of space is different from our understanding of space according to the principles and laws of mathematical physics. This chapter will provide a phenomenological analysis of the spatial perception in schizophrenia, based also on neuroscientific studies. Almost a century ago, Minkowski (1971, p. 386) first noticed the phenomenon of macroscopy in schizophrenia patients: Things are seen dimensionally larger than they would be normally perceived. Seeing objects larger or smaller than usual means that they are not perceived in a normal perspectival order, i.e., in a natural and uniform image or scene in which all things are proportionally arranged according to size and distance from the observer. Instead, they are perceived as objects in isolation, separated from any visual context or background. The phenomena of macroscopy and microscopy have not been studied as closely as other disorders of vision, on which most studies in the field of spatial perception focused on. The fragmentation of space and the difficulties that individuals with schizophrenia show in presenting space uniformly and in perspective have been analyzed in depth by neuropsychiatric researchers. This chapter presents the most significant findings regarding the altered perception of space in individuals with schizophrenia from the most recent studies.