Symposium 2: Projecting bodily consciousness

Sunday July 14 10:30-12:30

Projecting bodily consciousness: How the body affects consciousness in personal, peripersonal and interpersonal space

Chairs: Olaf Blanke (Cognitive Neuroscience, Ecole Polytechnique, Lausanne, CH),
Thomas Metzinger (Dep’t of Philosophy, Universität Mainz, DE)

Philosophy of mind, cognitive neuroscience, and neurology stress the importance of bodily input in forming of the experience of self and person. Such bodily aspects of self-consciousness have been shown to arise from the complex integration of interoceptive and exteroceptive body-related signals. An intrigu- ing aspect of bodily self consciousness is that it is not limited to the body itself, but also depends on stimuli related to external objects and in turn influences the experience of the external world. In this sense, bodily self-consciousness extends beyond the limits of our body over the space around us (i.e. peripersonal space) and impacts the interaction with other humans.

The presentations of this symposium will highlight complementary findings from multisensory, motor, and affective approaches and discuss their relavance for self-consciousness. Roy Salomon will focus on how bodily information, that has been shown to alter self-consciousness, can also modulate visual consciousness.

Andrea Serino will show how the boundaries of peripersonal space adapt when interacting with objects and others. Federique de Vignemont will extend the notion of embodiment to the study of social interactions and intersubjectivity.

Body-building-awareness: Bodily factors shaping our consciousness
Roy Salomon (Cognitive Neuroscience, Ecole Polytechnique, Lausanne, CH)

Spatial boundaries of Body-self Consciousness
Andrea Serino (Cognitive Neuroscience, U. Bologna, IT )

Seeing other people’s bodies
Frédérique de Vignemont (Dep’t of Philosophy, Institut Jean Nicod/CNRS, Paris, FR)