Beyond the body/self-consciousness matrix: Scale of the physical frame of reference and self-transcendence experience.

In a previous article published in this journal, I discussed the relation between the neurological system and some culturally prescribed forms of self-inflicted pain. I showed that the way humans experience and communicate pain depends on the cybernetic features of the peripheral and central nervous system. The body-self, our sense of coherent and embodied agency, was also discussed in its relation to neural function—Ronald Melzack's “neurosignature.” These topics traced a basic epistemology of self-inflicted pain. I showed that an intentional manipulation of systemic neural features could result in states of “self-transcendence,” or effacement, to which many mystics have aspired. These dynamics take place beneath the level of consciousness. They constitute a neuropsychology. But what happens at the conscious level, in the awareness of the self-mutilator? How do the neurological processes translate into decisions to hurt oneself, and what are the consequences of such pain? These questions are the subject of the present work. The discussion now moves to the psychological level of the experience of pain, but it builds carefully on the neurocybernetics of the previous article. There will be nodeus ex machinaSelf who becomes magically reborn through the ordeals of pain. For reasons that will become explicit shortly, I will adhere to the strict rules of phenomenology that regulated the first article. The subject who undergoes pain will only be discussed as an expansion of the body-self.

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Voyageurs malgré eux: Silence, embodiment, and exposure in Minh Tran Huy and Doan Bui

French Cultural Studies ◽

10.1177/09571558211025908 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 095715582110259

Author(s):

Caroline D. Laurent

Keyword(s):

Second Generation ◽

Life Stories ◽

The Body ◽

French Society ◽

Dual Identity ◽

Vietnamese Literature ◽

Asian Descent ◽

Vietnamese Community ◽

Body Self ◽

Do So

In recent Franco-Vietnamese literature written by descendants of immigrants, the liminality of exile is portrayed in all its complexity through migrant bodies – that of parents’ bodies – and through political and social bodies – linked to History and the Việt Kiều’s positionality in French society. The experience of external movement becomes an internal one, creating porosity between the outside and the body, self and others, places and times. This article argues that, in Minh Tran Huy’s Voyageur malgré lui and Doan Bui’s Le Silence de mon père, by representing their family’s migration, both authors present the silenced histories of the Vietnamese community in France. In order to do so, Tran Huy and Bui first focus on uncovering and writing the stories of their silent fathers: through their embodiment of exilic history, the fathers transmit the wound of their immigrant condition to their daughters. Consequently, daughters come to manifest similar bodily expressions of traumas they have not experienced and know little about. The fathers’ histories are eventually voiced and re-invested by the second generation. This shows how the unearthing of their fathers’ life stories is also about reappropriating a dual identity as well as making Asian diasporic perspectives and histories visible, notably to create new avenues of representation for French individuals of Asian descent.

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Effect of Exposure to Photographs of Thin Models on Self-Consciousness in Female College Students

Psychological Reports ◽

10.1177/003329410008600314.2 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 86 (3_part_2) ◽

pp. 1149-1154 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Brandy S. Wegner ◽

Anita M. Hartmann ◽

C. R. Geist

Keyword(s):

College Students ◽

College Women ◽

Print Media ◽

The Body ◽

The Self ◽

Female College Students ◽

Female College ◽

Body Self

The purpose of this study was to assess the immediate influence of brief exposure to images taken from print media on the general self-consciousness and body self-consciousness of 67 college women. After viewing photographs of either thin female models or control photographs, the women completed the Self-consciousness Scale and the Body Self-consciousness Questionnaire. Although a was .45, the college women who looked at images of thin female models gave immediate ratings significantly ( p < .001) higher on both general Self-consciousness and Body Self-consciousness than those who looked at control images.

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The body self-awareness among women practicing fitness: a preliminary study

Polish Psychological Bulletin ◽

10.1515/ppb-2015-0014 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 46 (1) ◽

pp. 104-111 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Anna Brytek-Matera ◽

Anna Kozieł

Keyword(s):

Body Awareness ◽

The Body ◽

Interoceptive Awareness ◽

Self Awareness ◽

Body Attitude ◽

Attitude Test ◽

Preliminary Study ◽

Body Self ◽

Body Attitude Test ◽

The Relationship

Abstract The purposes of the present study were to explore the relationship between body awareness and negative body attitude, interoceptive body awareness and physical self in women practicing fitness as well as to analyze the determinants of body awareness. The Body Awareness Questionnaire, the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness, the Physical Self-Description Questionnaire and the Body Attitude Test were applied to 43 women practicing fitness and 32 non-fitness practitioners. Bodily self-awareness was connected with greater fitness practitioners’ interoceptive body awareness and greater physical self. Noticing and global esteem predicted body awareness in women practicing fitness.

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‘The Basic Stuff of Our Memories’: Embodying and Embedding Discipline

Sociological Research Online ◽

10.5153/sro.1445 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 53-68 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Julie Brownlie

Keyword(s):

The Body ◽

Physical Discipline ◽

Body Memory ◽

Disciplinary Practices ◽

Political Debates ◽

Sociological Work ◽

Body Self

In recent political debates about physical chastisement, children have been positioned as ‘potential’ selves and have had their bodies mapped in specific ways. This article compares these discourses with findings from a study of parents’ views of proposed legislation on physical discipline. It is argued that parents’ talk about physical discipline is temporal not only because it is concerned with the nature of the child's body/self at the time of punishment but because parents engage with memories from their own childhood and, therefore, with how childhood selves have been disciplined across social and biographical time. Drawing on sociological work on the body, memory and childhood, the article explores two aspects of disciplinary practices - their embodied and embedded nature – which, to date, have been under researched and under theorised in debates about physical chastisement.

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How visual experience and task context modulate the use of internal and external spatial coordinate for perception and action

10.31234/osf.io/a6k9y ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Virginie Crollen ◽

Tiffany Spruyt ◽

Pierre Mahau ◽

Roberto Bottini ◽

Olivier Collignon

Keyword(s):

Coordinate System ◽

Visual Experience ◽

Simon Task ◽

Frame Of Reference ◽

The Body ◽

Blind People ◽

Coordinate Systems ◽

Task Instructions ◽

Congenitally Blind ◽

External Frame

Recent studies proposed that the use of internal and external coordinate systems may be more flexible in congenitally blind when compared to sighted individuals. To investigate this hypothesis further, we asked congenitally blind and sighted people to perform, with the hands uncrossed and crossed over the body midline, a tactile TOJ and an auditory Simon task. Crucially, both tasks were carried out under task instructions either favoring the use of an internal (left vs. right hand) or an external (left vs. right hemispace) frame of reference. In the internal condition of the TOJ task, our results replicated previous findings (Röder et al., 2004) showing that hand crossing only impaired sighted participants’ performance, suggesting that blind people did not activate by default a (conflicting) external frame of reference. However, under external instructions, a decrease of performance was observed in both groups, suggesting that even blind people activated an external coordinate system in this condition. In the Simon task, and in contrast with a previous study (Roder et al., 2007), both groups responded more efficiently when the sound was presented from the same side of the response (‘‘Simon effect’’) independently of the hands position. This was true under the internal and external conditions, therefore suggesting that blind and sighted by default activated an external coordinate system in this task. All together, these data comprehensively demonstrate how visual experience shapes the default weight attributed to internal and external coordinate systems for action and perception depending on task demand.

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