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Binding personal and extrapersonal space through body shadows

Nature Neuroscience volume 7, pages 14–16 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Shadows in visual scenes can have profound effects on visual perception. Here we have found that visual distracters distant from the body interfere with human spatial discrimination of tactile targets at a hand, particularly when the shadow of the stimulated hand stretches toward them in extrapersonal space. These findings suggest that shadows cast by a person's own body parts can bridge the gap between personal and extrapersonal space.

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Figure 1: Experimental setup.
Figure 2: Modulation of visuo-tactile interference in the four experiments.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S. Kennett and C. Bonfiglioli for comments on the manuscript. U.C. was supported by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze della Cognizione e della Formazione, Università degli Studi di Trento, Via Matteo del Ben 5 (third floor), Rovereto, 38068, Italy

    Francesco Pavani & Umberto Castiello

  2. Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, TW20 0EX, UK

    Umberto Castiello

Authors
  1. Francesco Pavani
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  2. Umberto Castiello
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Correspondence to Francesco Pavani.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Pavani, F., Castiello, U. Binding personal and extrapersonal space through body shadows. Nat Neurosci 7, 14–16 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1167

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