Tool Use: Two Mechanisms but One Experience

Heed, Tobias

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2019.10.062

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 21 publications

(33 reference statements)

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“…However, it is important to emphasize that the rabbit illusion is elicited by very unusual stimulus sequences that are designed to tickle out the dependence of perceptual processing on prior experience. In fact, there are other situations in which assigning tactile input to locations other than those at which they truly arise is highly functional: it is now well-established that humans are able to precisely localize where a tool they hold was touched (Heed, 2019;Miller et al, 2018Miller et al, , 2019, although, of course, the tactile input is sensed with the hand rather than the tool itself. Ultimately, the perception of touch on tools may well be forged by experience in the same way as our tactile perception on the body emerges from our lifelong interaction of objects with our skin (Miller et al, 2019).…”

Section: Assignment Of Touch To Distant Limbsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Illusory tactile movement crosses arms and legs and is coded in external space

Fuchs

Martel

Heed

2021

Preprint

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Humans often misjudge where on the body a touch occurred. Theoretical accounts have ascribed such misperceptions to local interactions in peripheral and primary somatosensory neurons, positing that spatial-perceptual mechanisms adhere to limb boundaries and skin layout. Yet, perception often reflects integration of sensory signals with prior experience. On their trajectories, objects often touch multiple limbs; therefore, body-environment interactions should manifest in perceptual mechanisms that reflect external space. Here, we demonstrate that humans perceived the cutaneous rabbit illusion - the percept of multiple identical stimuli as hopping across the skin - along the Euclidian trajectory between stimuli on two body parts and regularly mislocalized stimuli from one limb to the other. A Bayesian model based on Euclidian, as opposed to anatomical, distance faithfully reproduced key aspects of participants' localization behavior. Our results suggest that prior experience of touch in space critically shapes tactile spatial perception and illusions beyond anatomical organization.

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Section: Assignment Of Touch To Distant Limbsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Illusory tactile movement crosses arms and legs and is coded in external space

Fuchs

Martel

Heed

2021

Preprint

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Bridging the gap between consciousness and matter: recurrent out-of-body projection of visual awareness revealed by the law of non-identity

Meng

2023

Integr. psych. behav.

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Consciousness is the most precious function of brain; however, there is an explanatory gap between consciousness and matter, which is deemed to affect the scientific research on consciousness. We believe that a methodological trap commonly present in scientific research and the incompleteness of logic are the true reasons that affect the research on consciousness. Here, a novel logic tool, the non-identity law, was extracted from physics and applied into the analysis of the visual dynamics related to naturalistic observation of night-shot still life, whose methodological approach is consistent with Descartes’ matter-body-mind approach, breaking free from the methodological trap of current research. We show that visual system, the representative sensory system, has a postponed, recurrent out-of-body projection pathway from brain to observed object, besides the well-known feedforward signaling pathway available in existing literature, suggesting that human possesses an instinct of not only subjectively imaging (brain-generated imagery) but also projecting the image back onto the original or a particular place according to the clue of the manipulated afferent messenger light pathway. This finding adds a key piece of puzzle to the visual system. The out-of-body projection, coupled with neural correlates of consciousness (NCC), bridges the gap between consciousness and matter. This study in a self-contained and systematic manner provides a foundation for understanding the subjectivity and intentionality of human consciousness from the angle of visual awareness as well as the isomorphic relationships between unknowable original, private experience, and shareable expression (recording, calculus and deduction), showing that consciousness is obedient to certain rules rather than being unruly. The result paves the way for scientific research on consciousness and facilitates the integration of humanities and natural science.

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