There is a growing consensus that our most fundamental sense of self is structured by the ongoing integration of sensory and motor information related to our own body. Depersonalisation (DP) is an intriguing form of altered subjective experience in which people report feelings of unreality and detachment from their sense of self. The current study used the visual remapping of touch (VRT) paradigm to explore self-bias in visual–tactile integration in non-clinical participants reporting high and low levels of depersonalisation experiences. We found that the high-DP group showed an increased overall VRT effect but a no-self-face bias, instead showing a greater VRT effect when observing the face of another person. In addition, across all participants, self-bias was negatively predicted by the occurrence of anomalous body experiences. These results indicate disrupted integration of tactile and visual representations of the bodily self in those experiencing high levels of DP and provide greater understanding of how disruptions in multisensory perception of the self may underlie the phenomenology of depersonalisation.

The sense of self lies at the heart of conscious experience, anchoring our disparate perceptions, emotions, thoughts and actions into a unitary whole. There is a growing consensus that sensory information about the body plays a central role in structuring this basic sense of self. Depersonalisation (DP) is an intriguing form of altered subjective experience in which people report feelings of unreality and detachment from their sense of self. Previous studies in healthy adults have showed a self-bias effect, namely a greater enhancement of accuracy in detecting touch applied to one’s own face when viewing touch on the self versus other’s face. The current study used the Visual Remapping of Touch (VRT) paradigm to explore self-bias in visual tactile integration in non-clinical participants reporting high and low levels of depersonalisation experiences. Participants observed images of their own face, the face of another person or a ball being touched or not touched either unilaterally or bilaterally while being asked to detect unilateral or bilateral tactile stimulation on their own cheeks. The current study revealed that participants high in DP showed an increased overall VRT effect but a no self-face bias, instead showing a greater VRT effect when observing the face of another person. In addition, across all participants, self-bias was negatively predicted by the occurrence of anomalous body experiences suggesting that this effect was specifically linked to disruptions in the perception of the bodily self. These results provide evidence for disrupted integration of tactile and visual representations of the bodily self in those experiencing high DP and provide greater understanding of how disruptions in multisensory perception of the self may underlie the phenomenology of depersonalisation.