Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, viale Berti Pichat 5, Bologna, Italy.
Cortex. 2010 Mar;46(3):322-8. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2009.03.015. Epub 2009 Apr 23.
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.
为了探究对自身躯体外观（即自体）的加工是否属于统一或模块化的功能，我们向 8 名右脑损伤（RBD）患者和 14 名年龄匹配的神经健康对照组提交了一个视觉匹配样本任务，用于检测自体加工。如果自体加工是一个独特的功能（即身体和面部部分由同一网络处理），那么在自体身体部分受损（即无自体优势）的患者也应该在自体面部部分受损；或者，如果自体加工是一个模块化的功能（即身体和面部部分由不同的网络处理），那么在自体身体部分受损的患者在自体面部部分不应受损，除非面部模块也因损伤而受损。结果表明，健康参与者在处理代表自己的身体和面部部分的图片时比处理其他人的身体和面部部分更准确，表现出所谓的自体优势。患者的发现揭示了一种简单的分离，即那些在处理自身相关身体部分受损的患者在处理自身相关面部部分时表现出了保留的自体优势，从而为自体的模块化表示提供了初步证据。
