title: The role of visual similarity and memory in body model distortions.
abstract: Several studies have shown that the perception of one's own hand size is distorted in proprioceptive localization tasks. It has been suggested that those distortions mirror somatosensory anisotropies. Recent research suggests that non-corporeal items also show some spatial distortions. In order to investigate the psychological processes underlying the localization task, we investigated the influences of visual similarity and memory on distortions observed on corporeal and non-corporeal items. In experiment 1, participants indicated the location of landmarks on: their own hand, a rubber hand (rated as most similar to the real hand), and a rake (rated as least similar to the real hand). Results show no significant differences between rake and rubber hand distortions but both items were significantly less distorted than the hand. Experiments 2 and 3 explored the role of memory in spatial distance judgments of the hand, the rake and the rubber hand. Spatial representations of items measured in experiments 2 and 3 were also distorted but showed the tendency to be smaller than in localization tasks. While memory and visual similarity seem to contribute to explain qualitative similarities in distortions between the hand and non-corporeal items, those factors cannot explain the larger magnitude observed in hand distortions.
authors.affiliation: Human Perception, Cognition and Action, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany. Electronic address: aurelie.saulton@tuebingen.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Aurelie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saulton
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck University of London, England, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Matthew R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Longo
authors.affiliation: Philosophy of Neuroscience, Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Hong Yu
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.affiliation: Human Perception, Cognition and Action, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany; Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea. Electronic address: heinrich.buelthoff@tuebingen.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Heinrich H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Bülthoff
authors.affiliation: Human Perception, Cognition and Action, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: de la Rosa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D011434:Proprioception / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012408:Rubber; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D012408:Rubber
keywords: Body model; Body representation; Distortions; Hand; Memory