wk10= the development of our body representations from an innate pov

Question 1

plan

Answer 1

1. introduction
2. body representations at birth
3. multisensory representation at birth + development
4. fine tuning of body representations

Question 2

1a. introduction

Answer 2

Body representations
body representations are multisensory perceptions involving the integration of a range of different sensory inputs. these are crucial for perceiving the self and the environment + action panning.

Question 3

1b. introduction

Answer 3

Thesis
Define innate + While infants display evidence of early body representations, the development of these representations involves interaction between innate mechanisms and sensory experience. This essay will explore how body maps emerge, how they are refined, and how they support action.

Question 4

2a. body representations at birth (Hooker 1952,Humphrey 1964,Gallager)

Answer 4

Infants appear to posses rudimentary body rep supporting claims certain body knowledge is innate
Touch
Important for provide direct info about own body, our most bodily sense + first sense to develop. Hooker 1952 light brushing in mouth area elicited head movement in aborted foetus at 7 weeks Humphrey (1964) extended this anatomy earlier at 4 weeks gestation
Seen in hand mouth co-ordination
Hand mouth co coordination where mouth open= anticipated hand = innate . Gallager extended + suggested this preprograming is root of phantom limb syndrome .PLS= sensation of pain from a limb that not there + supports innate body rep. reflex evidence suggest innate structure of hand movement and mouth. This provides phantom sensation of those born into PLS.

Question 5

2b. body representations at birth (Meltzoff + Moore 1997, cook 2014)

Answer 5

HOWEVER
Doubts-> foetuses have hand up near mouth all time in utero, most rich innovative prts of the body in terms of tactile sensation. So this means a lot of interaction in the utero of bands an mouth. This may have lead to the anticipation of the arrival of hand because of experience of physical proximity in utero. Negates nativist pov and suggest we learn associations between oral and manual sensory stimuli over experience to build body rep
Meltzoff + Moore (1977)
Looked at imitations and suggested perhaps babies imitative responses provide evidence of innate body rep. baby feel themselves in another persons position = engagement. They match feeling of moving own face into the pattern in front of them. Found babies engage in imitation = innate matching between sensory feeling of ones own face and the visual appearance of someone else’s face through body rep
Counterpoint
Meta analysis of these studies found replication difficult. Tongue protrusion only reliable imitation. May just be bc they stick tongue out when excited rather than imitation itself (Cook 2014). Only after 8 months was imitation found

Question 6

3a. multisensory representations at birth + development (Fillippetti (2013)

Answer 6

Multisensory studies important, whilst brain imaging studies show a basic structure of somatotopy in the brain, cannot clearly say its innate as it doesn’t tell how we link info together
Fillippetti (2013)
sensitivity to visual-tactile correspondences of faces . Suggests ability to integrate info related to the body.when face upside down=disappear.when face is ups side down they destroy the ideas that this is about the body, losing visual tactile integration Suggestion multisensory ability is to do with body rep.

Question 7

3b. multisensory representations at birth + development (ali 2020, Yang et al 2023 )

Answer 7

Ali (2020)
Extended ability from faces , examining vision +touch & hearing + touch on body . Found 4m looked longer if stimuli were in sync. This shows preference thus ability to differentiate between stimuli . Suggest awareness which stimuli is occurring at the same time in the body . Innate?

Yang et al 2023
looked at development of this skill by observing 4m +8m somatosensory brain. Found 8m brain frequency to shift when experiencing touch along with something visual compared to nothing in 4m. Suggests tactile info is enhancing visual body processing and this skipp develops between 4-8m

Question 8

4a. fine tuning of representations (Bremmer 2008)

Answer 8

Other areas our body representation fine tune as we develop our motor skills
Bremmer 2008
Investigate develop ability to localise touch in 6.5 and 10m infant. Found babies are correct for moving their hand when feeling touch, but not moving their eyes to target until much later , may have just been movement of hand that attracted visual attention. 10m simultaneously made connections between visual world with body and tactile stimuli

Question 9

4b. fine tuning of representations (Bremmer 2016)

Answer 9

Reliance on visual cues
Tend to be more reliant on visual cues to own body early, then start using proprioceptive cues to tell us where limbs are in balance of visual cues.
Rubber hand illusion
RHI is illusion where brain is tricked into feeling that a fake hand is a part of your body. Its rooted in the influence of visual cues (Bremmer 2016) found children = stronger RHI than adults despite having same levels of ownership across ages. Suggests a change in how we balance our senses as we get older. Reflected in children not being able to demonstrate full body illusions because that too requires tuning of visual and proprioceptive cues