Implicit body representations and tactile spatial remapping

Abstract

To perceive the location of a tactile stimulus in external space (external tactile localisation), information about the location of the stimulus on the skin surface (tactile localisation on the skin) must be combined with proprioceptive information about the spatial location of body parts (position sense)--a process often referred to as 'tactile spatial remapping'. Recent research has revealed that both of these component processes rely on highly distorted implicit body representations. For example, on the dorsal hand surface position sense relies on a squat, wide hand representation. In contrast, tactile localisation on the same skin surface shows large biases towards the knuckles. These distortions can be seen as behavioural 'signatures' of these respective perceptual processes. Here, we investigated the role of implicit body representation in tactile spatial remapping by investigating whether the distortions of each of the two component processes (tactile localisation and position sense) also appear when participants localise the external spatial location of touch. Our study reveals strong distortions characteristic of position sense (i.e., overestimation of distances across vs along the hand) in tactile spatial remapping. In contrast, distortions characteristic of tactile localisation on the skin (i.e., biases towards the knuckles) were not apparent in tactile spatial remapping. These results demonstrate that a common implicit hand representation underlies position sense and external tactile localisation. Furthermore, the present findings imply that tactile spatial remapping does not require mapping the same signals in a frame of reference centred on a specific body part.

Keywords: Body representation; Proprioception; Somatosensory; Tactile remapping; Touch.