The self is the core of our mental life which connects one’s inner mental life with the external perception. Since synchrony is a key feature of the biological world and its various species, what role does it play for humans? We conducted a large-scale psychological study (n = 1072) combining newly developed visual analogue scales (VAS) for the perception of synchrony and internal and external cognition complemented by several psychological questionnaires. Overall, our findings showed close connection of the perception of synchrony of the self with both internal (i.e., body and cognition) and external (i.e., others, environment/nature) synchrony being associated positively with adaptive and negatively with maladaptive traits of self. Moreover, we have demonstrated how external (i.e., life events like the COVID-19 pandemic) variables modulate the perception of the self’s internal-external synchrony. These findings suggest how synchrony with self plays a central role during times of uncertainty.

自我是我们精神生活的核心，它将一个人的内在精神生活与外在感知联系起来。既然同步是生物世界及其各个物种的一个关键特征，那么它对人类起着什么作用呢？我们进行了一项大规模的心理学研究（n = 1072），结合了新开发的视觉模拟量表（VAS），用于同步感知和内部和外部认知，并辅以一些心理问卷。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，自我同步性感知与内部（即身体和认知）和外部（即他人、环境/自然）同步性与自我的适应性特征呈正相关，与适应不良特征呈负相关。此外，我们还证明了外部（即像 COVID-19 大流行这样的生活事件）变量如何调节自我内外同步的感知。这些发现表明，在不确定的时期，与自我的同步如何发挥核心作用。