Wadle, Douglas (2024) The Contributions of the Bodily Senses to Body Representations in the Brain. [Preprint]

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	Text Wadle-Bodily_Senses_Body_Reps.pdf Download (6MB)

Abstract

Felix reaches up to catch a high line drive to left field and fires the ball off to Benji at home plate, who then tags the runner trying to score. For Felix to catch the ball and transfer it from his glove to his throwing hand, he needs to have a sense of where his hands are relative to one another and the rest of his body. This sort of information is subconsciously tracked in the body schema (or postural schema), a representation of the current bodily posture that is updated on the basis of proprioceptive inputs. While the existence of the body schema in not in dispute, its origin is. After reviewing the competing proposals, I introduce the conceptual tools needed to move the debate forward and apply them to the question of the extent to which the body schema could be learned from perceptual input in utero. I argue that it could give rise to something recognizable as the body schema, though not quite rising to the level of the mature body schema. After considering the implications for further research on the origins of the body schema, I show how these results apply to other body representations, helping clarify the vexing question of the number, nature, and interactions among body representations in the brain. This theoretical work also promises to advance our understanding and treatment protocols for disorders affecting such body representations (e.g., anorexia nervosa).

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Wadle, Douglas C. 0000-0002-6713-2919
Keywords:	body representations; body schema; cognitive science
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Neuroscience > Cognitive Neuroscience Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Concepts and Representations Specific Sciences > Psychology > Developmental Psychology Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Perception
Depositing User:	Douglas Wadle
Date Deposited:	10 Oct 2024 11:48
Last Modified:	10 Oct 2024 11:48
Item ID:	24027
Journal or Publication Title:	Review of Philosophy and Psychology
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Neuroscience > Cognitive Neuroscience Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Concepts and Representations Specific Sciences > Psychology > Developmental Psychology Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Perception
Date:	2024
ISSN:	1878-5158
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/24027

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