Feeling Oneself Requires Embodiment: Insights From the Relationship Between Own-Body Transformations, Schizotypal Personality Traits, and Spontaneous Bodily Sensations

Abstract

Subtle bodily sensations such as itching or fluttering that occur in the absence of any external trigger (i.e., spontaneous sensations, or SPS) may serve to locate the spatial boundaries of the body. They may constitute the normal counterpart of extreme conditions in which body-related hallucinations and perceptual aberrations are experienced. Previous investigations have suggested that situations in which the body is spontaneously experienced as being deformed are related to the ability to perform own-body transformations, i.e., mental rotations of the body requiring disembodiment. We therefore decided to consider whether the perception of SPS might relate to embodiment as assessed through (i) the ability to perform own-body transformations (OBT task) and (ii) schizotypal traits (Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire, or SPQ), since high degrees of schizotypy in the general population have been associated with more vivid perceptions and aberrant perceptual experiences. Then participants completed a standard SPS task. Our analysis revealed that the slower the response time in the OBT task, the more frequent the perception of SPS. This suggests that difficulties in disembodying and mentally transforming one’s own body facilitate feeling oneself. Furthermore, a greater number of correct responses in the OBT task was associated with less frequent perception of SPS. This suggests that finding it easier to disembody and perform mental own-body transformations interferes with the ability to sense oneself. The results also show that higher schizotypal traits, as assessed through the SPQ, are associated with more frequent perception of SPS. Taken together, these results provide a coherent picture and suggest that embodiment is required in order to correctly feel oneself, as expressed through the perception of SPS. The ability to easily experience disembodiment reduces the sense of feeling oneself, and proneness to schizotypal traits produces body misperceptions that enhance and amplify this feeling. The results are discussed in the light of current knowledge and theories about body representations, taking into account attention and interoception as factors that influence body awareness. We offer explanations for perceptual aberrations, body-related delusions, and hallucinations based on misperceived or misinterpreted SPS, and we discuss possible mechanisms that may contribute to feeling and misperceiving oneself.

Indigenous-Amazonian Traditional Medicine’s Usage of the Tobacco Plant: A Transdisciplinary Ethnopsychological Mixed-Methods Case Study

“…Daily experience-sampling (EMA) during the week pointed to a gradually increasing sense of calm, mental clarity, and general fortification (e.g., “I am stronger daily; I do not feel sick”, “calm, clear-headed”, “my patience and self-compassion are growing”). The patient described the treatment as an embodied experience [ 104 ] (“full body presence”, “the healing felt very grounded and physical”) with affective (e.g., “relief, gratitude, grief, joy came zipping out of me”) and cognitive (e.g., “my thoughts were remarkably clear and complete”) aspects (altered states). Spontaneously arising insights were commonly reported (e.g., “I have written 10 pages of deeply emotional insights”, “insight coming one after another after dark”), with themes relating to self-understanding (e.g., “I acknowledged my tendency to run, to seek novelty, to fluctuate […] the first time I have had real insight about this”, “my eagerness to please and be validated by others”), shifts of perception (“about my abundance: switch the perspective from having not enough to more than enough”), existential or spiritual themes (e.g., “things that caused me great distress are perfectly ordained”), or impetus for action (“what to do in my life to course-correct”).…”

Relaxing music and the self: Insights from the perception of spontaneous sensations

“…Power analyses were conducted on the effect size of the proximodistal gradient in frequency of SPS, which is a standard characteristic. Based on nine published studies (Michael & Naveteur, 2011;Beaudoin & Michael, 2014;Borg et al, 2015;Echalier et al, 2020;Michael et al, 2012Michael et al, , 2015Michael et al, , 2017Michael et al, , 2020Salgues et al, 2021a) carried out on 419 participants (11 experiments and 1414 hand maps), the weighted mean effect size expressed as Cohen's w is .34 (i.e., medium to large) and expressed as Cramér's V is .19 (i.e., medium to large). To provide a power of 90% to detect a medium effect size, 123 hand maps were required.…”

“…Surface-like SPS were the most frequently perceived and reported (47.5%), followed by deep (21.5%), thermal (17.5%), paresis-like (8.3%), and pain-like (5.2%) sensations. The effect of arousal was examined (Beaudoin & Michael, 2014;Borg et al, 2015;Echalier et al, 2020;Michael et al, 2012Michael et al, , 2017Michael et al, , 2020Michael & Naveteur, 2011;Salgues et al, 2021a) by chi-square tests (Table 2). Excerpts of low arousal were found to increase the perception of deep sensations (24.3%) compared to high arousal (18.4%), χ 2 (1) = 4.2, p < .04, and Cramér's V = .21.…”

“…Although the present study examined the effects of low versus high arousing music on SPS, a subsidiary question is whether music has any effect at all. Since a silence (i.e., without music) condition was not included here, this issue was examined through a comparison of SPS parameters (other than the frequency of spatial distribution) between the results of the present study, taken independent of arousal condition, and nine published studies (Beaudoin & Michael, 2014;Borg et al, 2015;Echalier et al, 2020;Michael et al, 2012Michael et al, , 2017Michael et al, , 2020Salgues et al, 2021a) in which no music was used. Data about perceived intensity, surface percentage, number of disjoined areas, surface per area, and variety of SPS were available from a sample of 419 healthy participants (381 females and 38 males; mean age 23.5 years, SD = 8.1; mean BMI = 21.6, SD = 3.16), while data for confidence ratings were available from 349 of these participants (317 females and 32 males; mean age 23.6 years, SD = 7.9; mean BMI = 21.8, SD = 3.15).…”

“…Recent research has shown that SPS are related to subjects’ interoceptive sensitivity, basic tonic physiological arousal, and embodiment processes. Without equating having sensations as being self-aware, the complete picture provided by previous investigations suggests that SPS are related to self-referential and self-awareness processes (Michael et al, 2015, 2017, 2020; Salgues et al, 2021a), a notion that is backed by the fact that patients whose self-perception is distorted due to pathological conditions such as chronic pain also exhibit a modification in the perception of SPS (Borg et al, 2015; Echalier et al, 2020). Such sensations are grounded within one’s own body and representations of the body and its parts (Kinsbourne, 1998; Sakson-Obada et al, 2018) and contribute to subjective feelings of the sense of Self (Michael et al, 2020), that is, when one knows that this is one’s own hand or face (Gallagher, 2000).…”