The role of hand size in own-body representation in childhood, adolescence & adulthood

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janna M. Gottwald ◽  
Laura Bird ◽  
Andrew J. Bremner ◽  
Dorothy Cowie
Keyword(s):  
Age Groups ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
Body Representation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Size Change ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Hand Size ◽  
Multisensory Information ◽  
Proprioceptive Drift

Children’s and adults’ body representation is constrained by bottom-up multisensory information and by top-down knowledge on possible postures. Using the rubber hand illusion paradigm, this study (N = 229) investigates whether different fake hand sizes (60%, 80%, 100%, 120% or 140% of typical hand size) constrain embodiment in three age groups (6- to 7-year-olds, 12- to 13-year-olds, and adults). Embodiment was measured by questionnaire, proprioceptive drift, and affordance judgements. In line with previous work, we found robust effects of age and synchrony, with higher responses at younger ages and under conditions of visual-tactile synchrony. There were no significant effects of hand size on proprioceptive drift or self-rated hand ownership; nor did participants verbally report that their hand had changed size. Participants of all ages therefore embodied a differently-sized fake hand, without being explicitly aware of the size change. However, manual judgments of own-hand size were significantly influenced by the size of the previously seen fake hand. Therefore, participants did implicitly incorporate a size change into their body schema. In sum, embodiment of differently-sized hands reveals substantial plasticity in body representation, modulated strongly by multisensory information and age. Further, the embodiment of a differently-sized hand specifically affects action-oriented representations of the body.

The Role of Hand Size in the Fake-Hand Illusion Paradigm

Perception ◽  
10.1068/p5853 ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (10) ◽  
pp. 1547-1554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Pavani ◽  
Massimiliano Zampini
Keyword(s):  
Body Image ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
Body Representation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Video Image ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Statistical Correlations ◽  
Hand Size ◽  
Visible Hand

When a hand (either real or fake) is stimulated in synchrony with our own hand concealed from view, the felt position of our own hand can be biased toward the location of the seen hand. This intriguing phenomenon relies on the brain's ability to detect statistical correlations in the multisensory inputs (ie visual, tactile, and proprioceptive), but it is also modulated by the pre-existing representation of one's own body. Nonetheless, researchers appear to have accepted the assumption that the size of the seen hand does not matter for this illusion to occur. Here we used a real-time video image of the participant's own hand to elicit the illusion, but we varied the hand size in the video image so that the seen hand was either reduced, veridical, or enlarged in comparison to the participant's own hand. The results showed that visible-hand size modulated the illusion, which was present for veridical and enlarged images of the hand, but absent when the visible hand was reduced. These findings indicate that very specific aspects of our own body image (ie hand size) can constrain the multisensory modulation of the body schema highlighted by the fake-hand illusion paradigm. In addition, they suggest an asymmetric tendency to acknowledge enlarged (but not reduced) images of body parts within our body representation.

scholarly journals The developing bodily self: How posture constrains body representation in childhood

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janna M. Gottwald ◽  
Laura Bird ◽  
Samantha Keenaghan ◽  
Clare Diamond ◽  
Eliana Zampieri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Representation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Tactile Information ◽  
Multisensory Information ◽  
Proprioceptive Drift

Adults’ body representation is constrained by multisensory information and knowledge of the body such as its possible postures. This study (N = 180) tested for similar constraints in children. Using the rubber hand illusion with adults and 6- to 7-year-olds, we measured proprioceptive drift (an index of hand localisation) and ratings of felt hand ownership. The fake hand was either congruent or incongruent with the participant’s own. Across ages, congruency of posture and visual-tactile congruency yielded greater drift towards the fake hand. Ownership ratings were higher with congruent visual-tactile information, but unaffected by posture. Posture constrains body representation similarly in children and adults, suggesting that children have sensitive, robust mechanisms for maintaining a sense of bodily self.

The role of the right parietal lobe in anorexia nervosa

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (9) ◽  
pp. 1531-1539 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Nico ◽  
E. Daprati ◽  
N. Nighoghossian ◽  
E. Carrier ◽  
J.-R. Duhamel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Anorexia Nervosa ◽  
Healthy Volunteers ◽  
Parietal Lobe ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
Body Representation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Subjective Perception ◽  
Body Boundary ◽  
The Right

BackgroundPatients with anorexia nervosa (AN) overestimate their size despite being severely underweight. Whether this misperception echoes an underlying emotional disturbance or also reflects a genuine body-representation deficit is debatable. Current measures inquire directly about subjective perception of body image, thus distinguishing poorly between top-down effects of emotions/attitudes towards the body and disturbances due to proprioceptive disorders/distorted body schema. Disorders of body representation also emerge following damage to the right parietal lobe. The possibility that parietal dysfunction might contribute to AN is suspected, based on the demonstrated association of spatial impairments, comparable to those found after parietal lesion, with this syndrome.MethodWe used a behavioral task to compare body knowledge in severe anorexics (n=8), healthy volunteers (n=11) and stroke patients with focal damage to the left/right parietal lobe (n=4). We applied a psychophysical procedure based on the perception, in the dark, of an approaching visual stimulus that was turned off before reaching the observer. Participants had to predict whether the stimulus would have hit/missed their body, had it continued its linear motion.ResultsHealthy volunteers and left parietal patients estimated body boundaries very close to the real ones. Conversely, anorexics and right parietal patients underestimated eccentricity of their left body boundary.ConclusionsThese findings are in line with the role the parietal cortex plays in developing and maintaining body representation, and support the possibility for a neuropsychological component in the pathogenesis of anorexia, offering alternative approaches to treatment of the disorder.

Neural underpinnings of body image and body schema disturbances

2021 ◽  
pp. 267-284
Author(s):  
Jasmine Ho ◽  
Bigna Lenggenhager
Keyword(s):  
Body Image ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
Body Representation ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
The Body ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Body Image Disturbances ◽  
Posterior Parietal ◽  
Neural Underpinnings ◽  
Multisensory Information

The sense of our body is fundamental to human self-consciousness. Many neurological and psychiatric disorders involve atypical corporeal awareness with symptomatology that might be very heterogeneous, affecting various aspects of the bodily self. A common dichotomy divides disorders of the bodily self into disorders affecting predominantly the body schema and disorders predominantly affecting the body image. Yet, increasing evidence suggests that body schema and body image are mutually dependent, making a clear categorization of most disorders difficult. This interdependence is illustrated with examples of a few selected disorders that encompass an atypical sense of the bodily self. A special focus is placed on underlying neural alterations in various body-related brain regions. While body schema-related disorders might rather be linked to a disruption in the integration of multisensory information into a coherent body representation, especially in premotor and posterior parietal areas, body image disturbances, particularly their affective and cognitive aspects, might be linked to a broader network centred around cortical midline structures that are crucially involved in self-referential processes.

The Role of the Cerebellum in Dynamic Changes of the Sense of Body Ownership: A Study in Patients with Cerebellar Degeneration

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 712-721 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirta Fiorio ◽  
Caterina Mariotti ◽  
Marta Panzeri ◽  
Emanuele Antonello ◽  
Joseph Classen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cerebellar Ataxia ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Premotor Cortex ◽  
The Body ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Subjective Feeling ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Proprioceptive Drift

The sense of the body is deeply rooted in humans, and it can be experimentally manipulated by inducing illusions in at least two aspects: a subjective feeling of ownership and a proprioceptive sense of limb position. Previous studies mapped these different aspects onto anatomically distinct neuronal regions, with the ventral premotor cortex processing subjective experience of ownership and the inferior parietal lobule processing proprioceptive calibration. Lines of evidence suggest an involvement also of the cerebellum, but its precise role is not clear yet. To investigate the contribution of the cerebellum in the sense of body ownership, we applied the rubber-hand illusion paradigm in 28 patients affected by neurodegenerative cerebellar ataxia, selectively involving the cerebellum, and in 26 age-matched control participants. The rubber hand illusion is established by synchronous stroking of the participants' real unseen hand and a visible fake hand. Short asynchronous stroking does not bring about the illusion. We tested the subjective experience of the illusion, evaluated through a questionnaire and the proprioceptive drift of the real unseen hand toward the viewed rubber hand. In patients with cerebellar ataxia, we observed reduced sense of the subjective illusory experience specifically after synchronous stroking. In contrast, the proprioceptive drift was enhanced after synchronous and after asynchronous stimulation. These findings support the contention that the mechanisms underlying the presence of the illusion and the proprioceptive drift may be differently affected in different conditions. Impairment of the subjective sense of the illusion in cerebellar patients might hint at an involvement of cerebellar-premotor networks, whereas the proprioceptive drift typically associated with synchronous stroking appears to rely on other circuits, likely involving the cerebellum and the parietal regions.

Body Schema and Body Image

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Body Image ◽  
Body Dysmorphic Disorder ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Neural Activities ◽  
Body Shapes ◽  
Influential Book ◽  
Social And Cultural Factors

Body schema refers to the system of sensory-motor functions that enables control of the position of body parts in space, without conscious awareness of those parts. Body image refers to a conscious representation of the way the body appears—a set of conscious perceptions, affective attitudes, and beliefs pertaining to one’s own bodily image. In 2005, Shaun Gallagher published an influential book entitled ‘How the Body Shapes the Mind’. This book not only defined both body schema (BS) and body image (BI), but also explored the complicated relationship between the two. The book also established the idea that there is a double dissociation, whereby body schema and body image refer to two different, but closely related, systems. Given that many kinds of pathological cases can be described in terms of body schema and body image (phantom limbs, asomatognosia, apraxia, schizophrenia, anorexia, depersonalization, and body dysmorphic disorder, among others), we might expect to find a growing consensus about these concepts and the relevant neural activities connected to these systems. Instead, an examination of the scientific literature reveals continued ambiguity and disagreement. This volume brings together leading experts from the fields of philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry in a lively and productive dialogue. It explores fundamental questions about the relationship between body schema and body image, and addresses ongoing debates about the role of the brain and the role of social and cultural factors in our understanding of embodiment.

scholarly journals Perception of visual-tactile asynchrony, bodily perceptual aberrations, and bodily illusions in schizophrenia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regine Zopf
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Detection Sensitivity ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Body Perception ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Bodily Experiences ◽  
Asynchrony Detection ◽  
Body Perceptions ◽  
Proprioceptive Drift ◽  
Insight Into

Body perception can be dramatically altered in individuals with schizophrenia resulting in experiences of undefined bodily boundaries, loss of body ownership, and size changes for parts of the body. These individuals may also be more susceptible to the rubber hand illusion (RHI: an illusion of body perception that can also be induced in neurotypical populations), but the findings are mixed. Furthermore, the perception of timing information about multisensory stimuli, which is thought to be fundamental for body perception, has been reported to be altered in schizophrenia. We tested here whether altered perception of the temporal relationship between visual and tactile signals in schizophrenia can predict self-reported perceptual aberrations and RHI susceptibility (indexed by both illusion self-ratings and a more objective proprioceptive-drift measure). We found that the sensitivity to detect temporal asynchronies is reduced in schizophrenia and this predicts bodily perceptual symptoms. In contrast, we found no evidence for a direct relationship between asynchrony detection sensitivity and RHI susceptibility. Instead, our findings suggest that experiencing more bodily perceptual symptoms increases the likelihood of endorsing unusual bodily experiences, resulting in higher RHI self-ratings but not higher proprioceptive-drift scores. Overall, our findings provide evidence for both direct and indirect links between temporal and body perception and thus new insight into the mechanisms that may underlie unusual body perceptions in schizophrenia.

Triadic body representations in the human cerebral cortex and peripheral nerves

2021 ◽  
pp. 133-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noriaki Kanayama ◽  
Kentaro Hiromitsu
Keyword(s):  
Peripheral Nerves ◽  
Sensory Modality ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
Body Representation ◽  
Neural System ◽  
The Body ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Structural Description ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
The Brain

Is the body reducible to neural representation in the brain? There is some evidence that the brain contributes to the functioning of the body from neuroimaging, neurophysiological, and lesion studies. Well-known dyadic taxonomy of the body schema and the body image (hereafter BSBI) is based primarily on the evidence in brain-damaged patients. Although there is a growing consensus that the BSBI exists, there is little agreement on the dyadic taxonomy because it is not a concrete and common concept across various research fields. This chapter tries to investigate the body representation in the cortex and nervous system in terms of sensory modality and psychological function using two different approaches. The first approach is to review the neurological evidence and cortical area which is related to body representation, regardless of the BSBI, and then to reconsider how we postulate the BSBI in our brain. It can be considered that our body representation could be constructed by the whole of the neural system, including the cortex and peripheral nerves. The second approach is to revisit the BSBI conception from the viewpoint of recent neuropsychology and propose three types of body representation: body schema, body structural description, and body semantics. This triadic taxonomy is considered consistent with the cortical networks based on the evidence of bodily disorders due to brain lesions. These two approaches allow to reconsider the BSBI more carefully and deeply and to give us the possibility that the body representation could be underpinned with the network in the brain.

scholarly journals Proprioceptive drift is affected by the intermanual distance rather than the distance from the body’s midline in the rubber hand illusion

2020 ◽  
Vol 82 (8) ◽  
pp. 4084-4095
Author(s):  
Roberto Erro ◽  
Angela Marotta ◽  
Mirta Fiorio
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Information ◽  
Peripersonal Space ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Subjective Report ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Proprioceptive Drift ◽  
Subsequent Integration

Abstract In the rubber hand illusion (RHI), simultaneous brush stroking of a subject’s hidden hand and a visible rubber hand induces a transient illusion of the latter to “feel like it’s my hand” and a proprioceptive drift of the hidden own hand toward the rubber hand. Recent accounts of the RHI have suggested that the illusion would only occur if weighting of conflicting sensory information and their subsequent integration results in a statistically plausible compromise. In three different experiments, we investigated the role of distance between the two hands as well as their proximity to the body’s midline in influencing the occurrence of the illusion. Overall, the results suggest that the illusion is abolished when placing the two hands apart, therefore increasing the mismatch between the visual and proprioceptive modality, whereas the proximity of the two hands to the body’s midline plays only a minor role on the subjective report of the illusion. This might be driven by the response properties of visuotactile bimodal cells encoding the peripersonal space around the hand.

From the Body Schema to the Historical-Racial Schema

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 305-320
Author(s):  
Shiloh Whitney ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Body Schema ◽  
The Body ◽  
Premier Lieu ◽  
Nous Pouvons ◽  
Affective Intentionality ◽  
Feminist Theories ◽  
Schéma Corporel ◽  
The Way ◽  
Theories Feministes

What resources does Merleau-Ponty’s account of the body schema offer to the Fanonian one? First I show that Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the body schema is already a theory of affect: one that does not oppose affects to intentionality, positioning them not only as sense but as force, cultivating affective agencies rather than constituting static sense content. Then I argue that by foregrounding the role of affect in both thinkers, we can understand the way in which the historical-racial schema innovates, anticipating and influencing feminist theories of the affective turn – especially Sara Ahmed’s theory of affective economies. The historical-racial schema posits the constitution of affective agencies on a sociogenic scale, and these affective economies in turn account for the possibility of the collapse of the body schema into a racial epidermal schema, a disjunction of affective intentionality Fanon calls “affective tetanization.” Quelles ressources l’analyse du schéma corporel faite par Merleau-Ponty fournit-elle au schéma historico-racial proposé par Fanon ? En premier lieu, je vise à montrer que la théorie du schéma corporel de Merleau-Ponty est déjà une théorie de l’affect : une théorie qui n’oppose pas les affects à l’intentionnalité, qui ne les considère pas seulement comme un sens, mais comme une force, en cultivant des agentivités affectives plutôt qu’en constituant des contenus de sens statiques. Ensuite, j’affirmerai qu’en mettant en premier plan le rôle de l’affect chez ces deux penseurs, nous pouvons comprendre les innovations qu’apporte le schéma historico-racial, en anticipant et en influençant les théories féministes du tournant affectif – surtout la théorie de Sara Ahmed au sujet des économies affectives. Le schéma historico-racial établit la constitution d’agentivités affectives sur une échelle sociogénique, et ces économies affectives expliquent à leur tour la possibilité d’une dégradation du schéma corporel en schéma épidermique racial, une disjonction de l’intentionnalité affective que Fanon appelle « tétanisation affective ».Quali risorse può offrire la nozione merleau-pontiana di schema corporeo a quella di Fanon? In primo luogo, mi propongo di mostrare che la teoria dello schema corporeo elaborata da Merleau-Ponty è allo stesso tempo una teoria dell’affetto: una teoria che non oppone la dimensione degli affetti all’intenzionalità, poiché li considera non solo come senso ma come forze, in quanto implicano delle agentività affettive piuttosto che costituire meri contenuti statici di senso. Intendo quindi sostenere che mettendo in evidenza il ruolo dell’affetto in questi due autori sia possibile comprendere il portato innovativo dello schema storico-razziale, che anticipa e influenza le teorie femministe legate all’affective turn – e in particolare la teoria delle economie affettive elaborata da Sara Ahmed. Lo schema storico-razziale afferma la costituzione di agentività affettive a un livello sociogenetico, mentre le economie affettive rendono conto della possibilità del collasso dello schema corporeo in uno schema razziale epidermico, una disgiunzione dell’intenzionalità affettiva che Fanon definisce “tetanizzazione affettiva”.

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