Body Schema and Body Image: New Directions

Description

Body schema is a system of sensory-motor capacities that function without awareness or the necessity of perceptual monitoring. Body image consists of a system of perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs pertaining to one's own body. In 2005 Shaun Gallagher published an influential book entitled How the Body Shapes the Mind (OUP). That book not only defined both body schema and body image, but explored the complicated relationship between the two. It also established the idea that there is a double dissociation, whereby body schema and body image refer to two different but closely related systems. Given that many kinds of pathological cases can be described in terms of body schema and body image (phantom limbs, asomatognosia, apraxia, schizophrenia, anorexia, depersonalization, and body dysmorphic disorder, among others), we might expect to find a growing consensus about these concepts and the relevant neural activities connected to these systems. Instead, an examination of the scientific literature reveals continued ambiguity and disagreement. This volume brings together leading experts from the fields of philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry in a lively and productive dialogue. It explores fundamental questions about the relationship between body schema and body image, and addresses ongoing debates about the role of the brain and the role of social and cultural factors in our understanding of embodiment. cover Body Schema and Body Image Copyright Contents Acknowledgement About the Editors Contributors Introduction PART I 1. What is the body schema? 2. The space of the body schema: putting the schema in movement 3. Body schema dynamics in Merleau-​Ponty 4. A radical phenomenology of the body: subjectivity and sensations in body image and body schema 5. Body schema and body image in motor learning: refining Merleau-​Ponty’s notion of body schema 6. Reimagining the body image 7. The body in the German neurology of the early twentieth century PART II 8. Plasticity and tool use in the body schema 9. Triadic body representations in the human cerebral cortex and peripheral nerves 10. Body models in humans, animals, and robots: mechanisms and plasticity 11. From implicit to explicit body awareness in the first two years of life 12. Cross-​referenced body and action for the unified self: empirical, developmental, and clinical perspectives 13. Growing up a self: on the relation between body image and the experience of the interoceptive body PART III 14. The embodied and social self: insights on body image and body schema from neurological conditions 15. Unilateral body neglect: schemas versus images? 16. Neural underpinnings of body image and body schema disturbances 17. Body schema and body image disturbances in individuals with multiple sclerosis 18. Body schema and pain 19. Feeling of a presence and anomalous body perception 20. The body image–​body schema/​ownership–​agency model for pathologies: four case studies Index