Out of nowhere: thought insertion, ownership and context-integration

Abstract

We argue that thought insertion primarily involves a disruption of the sense of ownership for thoughts and that the lack of a sense of agency is but a consequence of this disruption. We defend the hypothesis that this disruption of the sense of ownership stems from a failure in the online integration of the contextual information related to a thought, in particular contextual information concerning the different causal factors that may be implicated in their production. Loss of unity of consciousness, manifested by incoherent subjective experiences is a general phenomenal characteristic of schizophrenia. This loss of coherence has been hypothesized to reflect a generalized deficit of contextual information integration not conveyed by, but related to, a target event. This deficit is manifested across many cognitive domains. We argue that it is also manifested in the process of thinking itself, resulting in causally decontextualized thoughts that are experienced as inserted thoughts.