Search

It has been shown that viewing a part of the body (i.e. an image of a hand) can improve tactile perception (Taylor-Clarke, Kennett, & Haggard, 2004). Recent evidence shows that such viewing lowers the interfering influence of incongruent visual information upon judgements of tactile events on the same body site. O’Dowd et al (in prep) found that by presenting two visual “flashes” with one vibrotactile stimulus on an image of the hand this resulted in the perception of two tactile stimuli (i.e. a “fission-like” interference) on the same hand location; and by presenting one “flash” with two vibrotactile stimuli on the hand this resulted in the perception of a single tactile stimulus (i.e. a “fusion-like” interference). However, these fission and fusion effects were reduced when the visual information (flashes) was presented on an image of a hand rather than a non-hand image. Thus, presenting tactile-relevant visual cues on an image of a hand appears to increase weighting towards tactile information and reduce the interfering effect of vision on touch. This effect was stronger for fusion-like versus fission-like effects, supporting proposals of dissociable mechanisms underpinning the two phenomenon (McGovern, Roudaia, Stapleton, McGinnity, & Newell, 2014). In this project, we investigate these effects further in multiple ways. Firstly, we focus on a population of children aged 4-12 years, to ask when during development the use of body-related cues in visuotactile perception emerges. Secondly, we ask whether seeing a hand image increases the influence of touch on vision, as well as weakening the effect of vision on touch. Finally, we incorporate unimodal trials, and measure gap detection thresholds, to assess the reliability of visual and tactile judgements, and we model predictions based on reliability weighting models of multisensory perception. This latter task will also allow us to address whether children weight visuotactile information in an optimal fashion for judgements of sequences of events and assess whether this weighting is altered by temporally coincident, tactile cues.

Body image disturbances (BID) are a common mental health phenomenon, and are thought to be prevalent in around 2%-13% of the general population and in 70% of eating disorder populations (Rief et al,2006). BID is defined as a distortion of perception, behaviour, or cognition related to weight or shape (Posavac, 2002). Body image involves a person’s feelings and attitudes regarding their size, shape, and weight. Body image is thought to be constructed by image schemas which are a dynamic and continuously updating system of multisensory interactions (e.g. perceptual, interoceptive and motoric) that give coherence and structure to the experience of the body in space (Johnson, 1987; Mandler,2004; Mandler, 2012). These image schemas are thought to be integrated and stored in memory, to be cued and reinstated through mental simulation when an individual is put in situations requiring spatial inferences (Barsalou, 2013; Riva, 2014). This phenomenon is widely evidenced in mental imagery tasks which usually asses the ability to mentally rotate representations of objects or bodily stimuli (e.g. hands, bodies, etc.) (Kosslyn et al, 2001). However, the importance of the affective nature of body image and multisensory interaction as a moderator of mental rotation performance has often been overlooked in the literature. Critically, interoceptive awareness which inform on the state and nature of the body and influence somatoperception when constructing the body schema (Longo et al, 2010). Recent neuroimaging studies have brought to light the critical role of interoceptive processing in constructing body image and bodily self-consciousness (Badoud and Tsakiris, 2017). BIDS are most commonly noted to be a prodrome of patients with eating disorders (Fairburn and Harisson, 2003) and has often been associated with body dissatisfaction (Griffen et al, 2018) and body shame (Vocks et al, 2007). Research into individuals with eating disorders, has suggested that Individuals with high BID may engage in more behaviours of self-surveillance and objectification - where information of the self and body is processed in accordance with information external to the body (exteroceptive information) as opposed to information about the internal body (interoceptive information) (Riva et al, 2012). This is thought to disrupt the aforementioned image schema transformation of real-time multisensory integration to be stored in memory, leading to a maladaptive representation of the self in memory (Riva et al, 2012). The literature supports this idea wherein Individuals with low interoceptive sensitivity have been found to have higher self-objectification scores (Ainley & Tsakiris, 2013) and this has been linked to difficulties in making own body spatial reference decisions whilst imagining the body in space (Urgesi et al, 2011). However, the developmental trajectory of BIDs is currently unknown; further research is needed to identify developmental shifts that may occur in relation to how the body is imagined, stored and called upon and its links to interoceptive awareness. Body dissatisfaction and body-related self-esteem is typically noted to arise during early adolescence (13-15 years) (Wang et al, 2019) and appears stable from mid to late adolescence (16-18 years) (Wang et al, 2019) into adulthood (19-40 years) (Runfola et al, 2013). Research is less consistent about body dissatisfaction in middle-late adulthood (40-75 years) where some studies indicate that body dissatisfaction decreases (Runfola et al, 2013) and some state that body dissatisfaction increases (Gagne et al, 2012). Therefore, this study aims to investigate levels of body image disturbance and interoceptive awareness from early to older adulthood (18-75 years) and its relationship to imagining our bodies in space (mental imagery) from different perspectives.

Research on the perceptual correlates of developmental dyslexia has traditionally focused on phonological processing. Where visual processing has been considered, the emphasis has been on visuotemporal processing along the magnocellular pathway, e.g.,(Stein, 2001). More recently, and guided by brain imaging studies showing hypoactivation in left fusiform gyrus in dyslexia, there is a growing interest in visuospatial processing. In particular, this research questions whether atypical visual processing in dyslexia is restricted to words as is suggested by the disorder’s definition as a ‘specific reading disability’. The current study is unique in comparing the performance of dyslexic (n = 30) and typical readers (n = 29) on both word and face processing tests that are specifically designed to measure ‘holistic processing’, a form of visuospatial processing associated with perceptual expertise. In agreement with recent research on face processing in dyslexia, we report longer response latency on the Vanderbilt Holistic Face Processing Test in dyslexic readers, a difference that cannot be attributed to anomalous holistic processing. In contrast, dyslexic readers show considerable impairment on the word processing task, including marked differences in holistic processing. These findings are discussed with reference to the ‘neuronal recycling hypothesis’ which emphasis the commonalities in how self-similar stimuli such as words and faces are processed by the human brain and to the heterogeneity underlying the dyslexia classification.

Results (details)

Poster presented at The European Society for Cognitive Psychology ESCoP Sep 3 - 6 2017

Poster presented at International Multisensory Research Forum IMRF, Nashville, TN, USA. May 19 -22.&nbsp

The ability to discriminate the direction of another person’s attention is an important skill in social interaction. Accurate discernment of where someone else is attending permits joint attention, an ability that emerges early in human development and is integral to the development of language and on some accounts theory of mind. Joint attention is a collaborative attentional state that involves shared attention upon an object or location in the environment. Before any shift in the observers attention takes place, they must first perceive where the other person attending in space. The direction of another person’s eye gaze, head orientation, body orientation, and hand pointing are social directional that aid perceptual discrimination of the direction of another person’s attention. Converging evidence supports high-level visual representation of some of these cues. Despite the important role that pointing plays in the development of social cognition, visual perception of pointing has received little attention in research. The aims of this thesis were to examine visual perception of these social directional cues and the relationship between the primary cues that elicit joint attention. These aims were achieved by examining how adults discern the direction of these cues and in turn reorient their attention towards the locus of another’s attention. Chapter 1 reviews the literature on the perception of social attention. Chapter 2 investigates hierarchical integration of left and right body and head orientations. Chapter 3 examines visual representation of hand pointing direction. In Chapter 4 modulation of spatial orienting of attention by social directional cue type and gender of viewer is examined. Chapter 5 examines observers’ ability to discern the direction of pointing at an object in space. The implications for understanding social perception are considered in Chapter 6. 2017-10-09 JG: Item withdrawn at author's request: Sarah Cooney 'I am writing to request that full distribution restrictions are imposed on my thesis ‘ Visual Perception of Social Directional Cues That Facilitate Joint Attention’ and placed indefinitely until I rescind the restriction (full restriction). This is due to prior publication issue concerning chapters of the dissertation.' 2017-10-07 2018-04-24 JG: Item reinstated per author's request. See researchrepository@ucd.ie/copyright/Emails to Authors.