TY - JOUR

T1 - Mirror-touch synaesthesia changes representations of self-identity

AU - Maister, Lara

AU - Banissy, Michael J

AU - Tsakiris, Manos

N1 - Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

PY - 2013/4

Y1 - 2013/4

N2 - Individuals with mirror-touch synaesthesia (MTS) experience touch on their own bodies when observing another person being touched. Whilst somatosensory processing in MTS has been extensively investigated, the extent to which the remapping of observed touch on the synaesthete's body can also lead to changes in the mental representation of the self remains unknown. We adapted the experimental paradigm of the 'enfacement illusion' to quantify the changes in self-face recognition as a result of synaesthetic touch. MTS and control participants observed the face of an unfamiliar person being touched or not, without delivering touch on the participant's face. Changes in self-representation were quantified with a self-face recognition task, using 'morphed' images containing varying proportions of the participant's face and the face of the unfamiliar other. This task was administered before and after the exposure to the other face. While self-recognition performance for both groups was similar during pre-test, MTS individuals showed a significant change in self-recognition performance following the observation of touch delivered to the other face. Specifically, the images that participants had initially perceived as containing equal quantities of self and other became more likely to be recognised as the self after viewing the other being touched. These results suggest that observing touch on others not only elicits a conscious experience of touch in MTS, but also elicits a change in the mental representation of the self, blurring self-other boundaries. This is consistent with a multisensory account of the self, whereby integrated multisensory experiences maintain or update self-representations.

AB - Individuals with mirror-touch synaesthesia (MTS) experience touch on their own bodies when observing another person being touched. Whilst somatosensory processing in MTS has been extensively investigated, the extent to which the remapping of observed touch on the synaesthete's body can also lead to changes in the mental representation of the self remains unknown. We adapted the experimental paradigm of the 'enfacement illusion' to quantify the changes in self-face recognition as a result of synaesthetic touch. MTS and control participants observed the face of an unfamiliar person being touched or not, without delivering touch on the participant's face. Changes in self-representation were quantified with a self-face recognition task, using 'morphed' images containing varying proportions of the participant's face and the face of the unfamiliar other. This task was administered before and after the exposure to the other face. While self-recognition performance for both groups was similar during pre-test, MTS individuals showed a significant change in self-recognition performance following the observation of touch delivered to the other face. Specifically, the images that participants had initially perceived as containing equal quantities of self and other became more likely to be recognised as the self after viewing the other being touched. These results suggest that observing touch on others not only elicits a conscious experience of touch in MTS, but also elicits a change in the mental representation of the self, blurring self-other boundaries. This is consistent with a multisensory account of the self, whereby integrated multisensory experiences maintain or update self-representations.

KW - Body Image/psychology

KW - Face

KW - Female

KW - Humans

KW - Illusions/psychology

KW - Pattern Recognition, Visual/physiology

KW - Photic Stimulation

KW - Recognition, Psychology

KW - Self Concept

KW - Statistics, Nonparametric

KW - Surveys and Questionnaires

KW - Touch/physiology

KW - Touch Perception/physiology

KW - Young Adult

U2 - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.01.020

DO - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.01.020

M3 - Article

C2 - 23391559

VL - 51

SP - 802

EP - 808

JO - Neuropsychologia

JF - Neuropsychologia

SN - 0028-3932

IS - 5

ER -