The Development of a Cross-Modal Sense of Body Ownership

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Somatosensory Perception

Background:

• The sense of body ownership is crucial for self-perception.
• Tactile and proprioceptive cues are fundamental to body ownership.
• Understanding the developmental trajectory of body ownership is key to understanding self-perception.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how tactile and proprioceptive cues contribute to the development of body ownership.
• To examine age-related differences in susceptibility to the somatic rubber-hand illusion (SRHI).
• To differentiate the development of explicit versus implicit aspects of body ownership.

Main Methods:

• Tested susceptibility to the somatic rubber-hand illusion (SRHI) in 4- to 5-year-olds, 8- to 9-year-olds, and adults.
• Assessed explicit sense of ownership using questionnaires.
• Measured implicit recalibration of hand position using a pointing task.

Main Results:

• Explicit feelings of owning a rubber hand were present from age 4 and did not change with development.
• The illusion's effect on hand position sense was observed in 8- to 9-year-olds and adults, increasing with age.
• Tactile-proprioceptive interactions contributed to explicit self-sense similarly across ages.
• Contribution to implicit hand position recalibration developed through age 9.

Conclusions:

• The explicit sense of body ownership develops early and remains stable.
• The implicit recalibration of hand position based on tactile-proprioceptive cues is still developing by age 9.
• Different aspects of the somatic rubber-hand illusion show distinct developmental trajectories.