Selective impairment of self body-parts processing in right brain-damaged patients.
To investigate whether the processing of the visual appearance of one's own body, that is the corporeal self is a unified or modular function we submitted eight right brain-damaged (RBD) patients and a group of fourteen age-matched neurologically healthy subjects, to a visual matching-to-sample task testing for corporeal self processing. If corporeal self processing is a unique function (i.e., body- and face-parts are processed by the same network), patients impaired in self body-parts (i.e., showing no self-advantage) should be impaired also in self face-parts; alternatively, if corporeal self processing is a modular function (i.e., body- and face-parts are processed by different networks), patients impaired in self body-parts should be unimpaired in self face-parts, unless the face-module is also damaged by the lesion. Results showed that healthy participants were more accurate in processing pictures representing their own as compared to other people's body- and face-parts, showing the so-called self-advantage. The patients' findings revealed a simple dissociation, in that patients who were impaired in the processing of self-related body-parts showed a preserved self-advantage when processing self-related face-parts, thus providing initial evidence of a modular representation of the corporeal self.
Frassinetti
Francesca
F
Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, viale Berti Pichat 5, Bologna, Italy. francesc.frassinetti@unibo.it
Maini
Manuela
M
Benassi
Mariagrazia
M
Avanzi
Stefano
S
Cantagallo
Anna
A
Farnè
Alessandro
A
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001828:Body Image; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000150:complications*; D005145:Face; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D011601:Psychophysics; D012649:Self Concept; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014796:Visual Perception