Multisensory perceptual distortion including auditory distortions in Alice in Wonderland syndrome: a case report

ABSTRACT

Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS) is a rare perceptual disorder characterized mainly by perceptual distortions of visual objects and one’s own body. While there are many case reports of visual and somatosensory distortions associated with AIWS, little is known about auditory distortion. Therefore, we present the case of a 22-year-old right-handed woman who described having auditory as well as visual and somatosensory distortion experiences and a family history of AIWS. The subject reported experiencing multisensory perceptual distortions, where she sees other people’s faces as larger and hears their voices as louder at the same time. This particular case suggests that auditory distortion – which contributes to constructing the perception of the surrounding space and the body – may also be characterized as a perceptual symptom of AIWS.

KEYWORDS:

• Alice in Wonderland syndrome
• AIWS
• perceptual distortion
• auditory distortion
• multisensory integration

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the subject for her participation in this study and Masahiro Tsujimoto for his comments on the case description.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article because no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant number [20K14250] and the Cooperative Research Project of the Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University grant number [R06/A25].