Mora Laura, Committeri Giorgia, L'Abbate Teresa, Cocchini Gianna
Psychology Department, Goldsmiths University of London, London, UK.
Institute of Advanced Biomedical Technologies, University "G. d'Annunzio", Chieti-Pescara, Italy.
J Neuropsychol. 2025 Mar;19 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):113-130. doi: 10.1111/jnp.12379. Epub 2024 Jun 14.
Knowledge of the body size is intricately tied to multisensory integration processes that rely on the dynamic interplay of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms. Recent years have seen the development of passive sensory stimulation protocols aimed at investigating the modulation of various cognitive functions, primarily inducing perceptual learning and behaviour change without the need for extensive training. Given that reductions in sensory input have been associated with alterations in body size perception, it is reasonable to hypothesize that increasing sensory information through passive sensory stimulation could similarly influence the perception of the size of body parts. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the potential modulatory effects of passive sensory stimulation on the perception of hand and face size in a group of young adults. Passive sensory stimulation effectively modulated the size representation of the stimulated hand, supporting the notion that access to somatosensory and proprioceptive information is prioritised for the hands but may not extend to the face. Increased somatosensory input resulted in a reduction of distortion, providing evidence for bottom-up modulation of size representation. Passive sensory stimulation can induce subjective changes in body size perception without the need for extensive training. This paradigm holds promise as a potential alternative for modulating distorted size representation in individuals with body representational deficits.
对身体大小的认知与多感官整合过程紧密相连，这些过程依赖于自上而下和自下而上机制的动态相互作用。近年来，出现了旨在研究各种认知功能调节的被动感觉刺激方案，主要是在无需大量训练的情况下诱导知觉学习和行为改变。鉴于感觉输入的减少与身体大小感知的改变有关，合理的假设是，通过被动感觉刺激增加感觉信息可能同样会影响身体部位大小的感知。本研究的主要目的是调查被动感觉刺激对一组年轻成年人手部和面部大小感知的潜在调节作用。被动感觉刺激有效地调节了受刺激手部的大小表征，支持了这样一种观点，即手部优先获取本体感觉和本体感受信息，但可能不会扩展到面部。增加的本体感觉输入导致了扭曲的减少，为大小表征的自下而上调节提供了证据。被动感觉刺激无需大量训练就能诱导身体大小感知的主观变化。这种范式有望成为调节身体表征缺陷个体中扭曲大小表征的一种潜在替代方法。
