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Self-attributed body-shadows modulate tactile attention.

Francesco Pavani1, Giovanni Galfano

  • 1Department of Cognitive Science and Education, University of Trento, via Matteo del Ben 5/b, 38068 Rovereto, Italy. francesco.pavani@unitn.it

Cognition
|July 15, 2006
PubMed
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Viewing body shadows, even abstract ones, directs tactile attention to the body part they represent, not just their location. This self-attribution of shadows influences how we process touch.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Visual Perception
  • Somatosensory Processing

Background:

  • Body shadows are visual stimuli with anatomical and movement correlations to our own bodies.
  • The relationship between visual perception of body ownership and somatosensory processing is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether self-attributed body shadows direct attention to the body part they represent.
  • To explore the role of visual resemblance and spatio-temporal correlation in this attentional cueing.

Main Methods:

  • Experiments utilized speeded spatial discrimination tasks for tactile and visual targets.
  • Task-irrelevant hand shadows (static or dynamic, with or without resemblance) were presented.
  • Performance was measured for targets at the hands or near the shadows.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Viewing body shadows selectively facilitated tactile discrimination at the corresponding body part.
  • Facilitation developed over time for dynamic shadows without visual resemblance but with spatio-temporal correlation.
  • Facilitation rapidly diminished for static, visually resembling shadow-like images.

Conclusions:

  • Self-attribution of body shadows influences the distribution of tactile attention.
  • Spatio-temporal correlation, rather than mere visual resemblance, is crucial for dynamic attentional cueing by body shadows.
  • This suggests a dynamic integration of visual ownership cues with somatosensory processing.