Dynamic spatial cognition: Components, functions, and modifiability of body schema

Abstract

There has been substantial progress towards the understanding of the classical notion of "body schema," with recent advances in experimental methodology and techniques. Mental rotation of the hands can be used as a tool to investigate body schema. Research has shown that implicit motor imagery (i.e., mental simulated movements) can be generated based on the body schema, by combining both stored and incoming sensory information. Multimodal stimulation of peripersonal space has also served as an experimental paradigm for the study of body schema. Perception of peripersonal space is based on body-part-centered space coding that is considered as a manifestation of the body schema, its function being to integrate visual, tactile, and proprioceptive information, and perhaps motor plans as well. By combining such experimental paradigms with neuroimaging and neurophysiological techniques, research has converged to show that the parietal association cortex and premotor cortex are important for the body schema. Multimodal perception of body parts and peripersonal space have been also studied in relation to prism adaptation and tool use effects, indicating a clear modifiability of the body schema. Following prolonged adaptation to reversed vision, a reversed hand representation can be added to the body schema like a tool. The stored component of the body schema may not be established well in young children. But once established it may not be deleted even after an arm is amputated, although it may be weakened. All of these findings help to specify properties of the body schema, its components, functions, and modifiabilities. © 2006 Japanese Psychological Association.