Difficulties in self-other processing lie at the core of schizophrenia and pose a problem for patients' daily social functioning. In the present selective review, we provide a framework for understanding self-other integration and distinction, and impairments herein in schizophrenia. For this purpose, we discuss classic motor prediction models in relation to mirror neuron functioning, theory of mind, mimicry, self-awareness, and self-agency phenomena. Importantly, we also discuss the role of more recent cognitive expectation models in these phenomena, and argue that these cognitive models form an essential contribution to our understanding of self-other integration and distinction. In doing so, we bring together different lines of research and connect findings from social psychology, affective neuropsychology, and psychiatry to further our understanding of when and how people integrate versus distinguish self and other, and how this goes wrong in schizophrenia patients.

Background: Schizophrenia is a disorder of basic self-disturbance. Evidence suggests that people with schizophrenia may have aberrant experiences of body ownership: they may feel that they are not the subject of their own body experiences. However, little is known about the development of such disturbances. Methods: Using a rubber hand illusion paradigm, we assessed body ownership in patients with schizophrenia (n = 54), healthy controls (n = 56), children/adolescents at increased familial risk of developing schizophrenia (n = 24) or mood disorders (n = 33), and children/adolescents without this risk (n = 18). In this paradigm, a rubber hand (visible) and a participant's real hand (invisible) were stroked synchronously and asynchronously; we then measured subjective illusory experiences and proprioceptive drift. Results: All groups showed the expected effect of the rubber hand illusion: stronger proprioceptive drift and increased subjective illusory experiences after synchronous versus asynchronous stroking. The effect of synchronicity on subjective experiences was significantly weaker in patients with schizophrenia than in healthy controls, and subjective ratings were positively correlated with delusions in patients. We found no significant differences between children/adolescents with and without increased familial risk. Limitations: Large individual differences raised questions for future research. Conclusion: We found subtle disturbances in body-ownership experiences in patients with schizophrenia, which were associated with delusions. We found no evidence for impairments in children/adolescents at increased familial risk of developing schizophrenia or a mood disorder. Longitudinal data might reveal whether impairments in body ownership are predictive of psychosis onset.