A Body Map Beyond Perceptual Experience
The human body is perhaps the most ubiquitous and salient visual stimulus that we encounter in our daily lives. Given the prevalence of images of human bodies in natural scene statistics, it is no surprise that our mental representations of the body are thought to strongly originate from visual expe...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Ubiquity Press
2024-02-01
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| Series: | Journal of Cognition |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://account.journalofcognition.org/index.php/up-j-jc/article/view/347 |
| _version_ | 1797261642562535424 |
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| author | Daniele Gatti Fritz Günther Luca Rinaldi |
| author_facet | Daniele Gatti Fritz Günther Luca Rinaldi |
| author_sort | Daniele Gatti |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The human body is perhaps the most ubiquitous and salient visual stimulus that we encounter in our daily lives. Given the prevalence of images of human bodies in natural scene statistics, it is no surprise that our mental representations of the body are thought to strongly originate from visual experience. Yet, little is still known about high-level cognitive representations of the body. Here, we retrieved a body map from natural language, taking this as a window into high-level cognitive processes. We first extracted a matrix of distances between body parts from natural language data and employed this matrix to extrapolate a body map. To test the effectiveness of this high-level body map, we then conducted a series of experiments in which participants were asked to classify the distance between pairs of body parts, presented either as words or images. We found that the high-level body map was systematically activated when participants were making these distance judgments. Crucially, the linguistic map explained participants’ performance over and above the visual body map, indicating that the former cannot be simply conceived as a by-product of perceptual experience. These findings, therefore, establish the existence of a behaviorally relevant, high-level representation of the human body. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T23:44:28Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6559f0623dd742ecb7aee8edeee27744 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2514-4820 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T23:44:28Z |
| publishDate | 2024-02-01 |
| publisher | Ubiquity Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Cognition |
| spelling | doaj.art-6559f0623dd742ecb7aee8edeee277442024-03-15T08:12:20ZengUbiquity PressJournal of Cognition2514-48202024-02-0171222210.5334/joc.347346A Body Map Beyond Perceptual ExperienceDaniele Gatti0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4109-2752Fritz Günther1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9205-6786Luca Rinaldi2https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2017-6102Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, PaviaInstitut für Psychologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, BerlinDepartment of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia; Cognitive Psychology Unit, IRCCS Mondino Foundation, PaviaThe human body is perhaps the most ubiquitous and salient visual stimulus that we encounter in our daily lives. Given the prevalence of images of human bodies in natural scene statistics, it is no surprise that our mental representations of the body are thought to strongly originate from visual experience. Yet, little is still known about high-level cognitive representations of the body. Here, we retrieved a body map from natural language, taking this as a window into high-level cognitive processes. We first extracted a matrix of distances between body parts from natural language data and employed this matrix to extrapolate a body map. To test the effectiveness of this high-level body map, we then conducted a series of experiments in which participants were asked to classify the distance between pairs of body parts, presented either as words or images. We found that the high-level body map was systematically activated when participants were making these distance judgments. Crucially, the linguistic map explained participants’ performance over and above the visual body map, indicating that the former cannot be simply conceived as a by-product of perceptual experience. These findings, therefore, establish the existence of a behaviorally relevant, high-level representation of the human body.https://account.journalofcognition.org/index.php/up-j-jc/article/view/347mental representationsbody representationdistributional semanticssemantic memory |
| spellingShingle | Daniele Gatti Fritz Günther Luca Rinaldi A Body Map Beyond Perceptual Experience Journal of Cognition mental representations body representation distributional semantics semantic memory |
| title | A Body Map Beyond Perceptual Experience |
| title_full | A Body Map Beyond Perceptual Experience |
| title_fullStr | A Body Map Beyond Perceptual Experience |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Body Map Beyond Perceptual Experience |
| title_short | A Body Map Beyond Perceptual Experience |
| title_sort | body map beyond perceptual experience |
| topic | mental representations body representation distributional semantics semantic memory |
| url | https://account.journalofcognition.org/index.php/up-j-jc/article/view/347 |
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