Centro Studi e Ricerche di Psicologia Della Comunicazione, Università Cattolica Del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy; Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Lab, Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy.
Cortex. 2018 Jul;104:241-260. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.07.013. Epub 2017 Jul 25.
Our experience of the body is not direct; rather, it is mediated by perceptual information, influenced by internal information, and recalibrated through stored implicit and explicit body representation (body memory). This paper presents an overview of the current investigations related to body memory by bringing together recent studies from neuropsychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary and cognitive psychology. To do so, in the paper, I explore the origin of representations of human body to elucidate their developmental process and, in particular, their relationship with more explicit concepts of self. First, it is suggested that our bodily experience is constructed from early development through the continuous integration of sensory and cultural data from six different representations of the body, i.e., the Sentient Body (Minimal Selfhood), the Spatial Body (Self Location), the Active Body (Agency), the Personal Body (Whole Body Ownership - Me); the Objectified Body (Objectified Self - Mine), and the Social Body (Body Satisfaction - Ideal Me). Then, it is suggested that these six representations can be combined in a coherent supramodal representation, i.e. the "body matrix", through a predictive, multisensory processing activated by central, top-down, attentional processes. From an evolutionary perspective, the main goal of the body matrix is to allow the self to protect and extend its boundaries at both the homeostatic and psychological levels. From one perspective, the self extends its boundaries (peripersonal space) through the enactment and recognition of motor schemas. From another perspective, the body matrix, by defining the boundaries of the body, also defines where the self is present, i.e., in the body that is processed by the body matrix as the most likely to be its one, and in the space surrounding it. In the paper I also introduce and discuss the concept of "embodied medicine": the use of advanced technology for altering the body matrix with the goal of improving our health and well-being.
我们对身体的体验不是直接的；相反，它是通过感知信息、受内部信息影响并通过存储的隐含和显式身体表示（身体记忆）进行重新校准的。本文通过汇集神经心理学、神经科学以及进化和认知心理学的最新研究，概述了身体记忆的当前研究。为此，在本文中，我探讨了人类身体表示的起源，以阐明其发展过程，特别是它们与更明确的自我概念的关系。首先，有人认为，我们的身体体验是从早期发展开始构建的，通过不断整合来自身体的六个不同表示的感觉和文化数据，即感觉身体（最小自我）、空间身体（自我位置）、主动身体（能动性）、个人身体（全身所有权-我）；客体化身体（客体化自我-我的）和社会身体（身体满意度-理想的我）。然后，有人认为，这六个表示可以通过中央、自上而下的注意过程激活的预测性、多感觉处理在一个连贯的超模态表示中结合，即“身体矩阵”。从进化的角度来看，身体矩阵的主要目标是允许自我在生理和心理层面上保护和扩展其边界。从一个角度来看，自我通过执行和识别运动模式来扩展其边界（个人空间）。从另一个角度来看，身体矩阵通过定义身体的边界，也定义了自我存在的位置，即身体矩阵处理的身体，以及它周围的空间。在本文中，我还介绍并讨论了“具身医学”的概念：使用先进技术来改变身体矩阵，以改善我们的健康和幸福。
