Abstract
In this article, I link the empirical hypothesis that neural representations of sensory stimulation near the body involve a unique motor component to the idea that the perceptual field is structured by skillful bodily activity. The neurophenomenological view that emerges is illuminating in its own right, though it may also have practical consequences. I argue that recent experiments attempting to alter the scope of these near space sensorimotor representations are actually equivocal in what they show. I propose resolving this ambiguity by treating these representations as responsive to the development or degeneration of know-how—which can be isolated as an appropriate object for scientific investigation.
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Notes
Rizzolatti et al.’s “The Space Around Us” summarized major findings from 1979 to 1997 on the existence, boundaries, and characteristics of peripersonal space (Leinonen et al. 1979; Rizzolatti et al. 1981; Gentilucci et al. 1983; Rizzolatti et al. 1983; Petrides and Pandya 1984; Matelli et al. 1986; Gentilucci et al. 1988; Rizzolatti et al. 1988; Colby et al. 1993; He et al. 1993; Graziano and Gross 1994; Matelli et al. 1994; Rizzolatti et al. 1994; Graziano et al. 1994; Jeannerod et al. 1995; Colby et al. 1996; Fogassi et al. 1996a; Fogassi et al. 1996b; Gross and Graziano 1995; Graziano et al. 1997a; Graziano et al. 1997b; Murrata et al. 1997). What I call here the “prevailing assumptions” (and later the “standard account” and the “mainstream view”) that were called into question by Rizzolatti et al.’s article are claims culled from various texts (Brewer 1993; Martin 1993; Pinker 1997; Hershenson 1999; Snowden et al. 2006; Mitchell 2010).
In the neuroscientific literature, the language of neural representation is prevalent, so I prefer to use that terminology when discussing empirical data. In the phenomenological literature, the language of object presentation is prevalent, so I prefer to use that terminology when discussing perception. I am not committed to representationalism or anti-representationalism at either level of explanation.
Poincaré argued that we are able to conceptualize external space by first having a practical understanding of egocentric space (Poincaré 1905). And Husserl argued that the perceiver occupies the center around which perceptual space unfolds (Husserl 1997, 1998; Zahavi 2003). Others since have pursued this line of thought, comparing and contrasting external space and egocentric space (Gibson 1979; Evans 1982; Peacocke 1992; Campbell 1994; Briscoe 2009). For Merleau-Ponty, however, the difference between external space and bodily space did not hinge on egocentricity. This is an important point as both external space and bodily space can be understood in egocentric terms. The difference between these two conceptions instead hinged on the role of the perceiver’s bodily activity in structuring perceptual space.
I am treating “skillful bodily activity” as synonymous with “motor intentionality.” In Merleau-Ponty’s work, motor intentions are never bodily movements simpliciter. That is, motor intentions—and thus skillful bodily activities—are not to be confused with incidental or unorganized bodily movements. Nor are they to be confused with reflective actions, of which the agent is completely aware. Rather, motor intentions are characterized in terms of the goal, purpose, or intention of bodily movements, regardless of whether the agent is aware of the intention of those movements (perhaps even because there is no such awareness) (Dreyfus 2002, 2007; Gallagher 2005; Carman 2008). Motor intentions also can be thought of as bodily habits.
Husserl claimed that because the body occupies space (and moves through it), the body is the condition of possibility of the spatiality of objects in the perceptual field (Husserl 1997, 1998; Zahavi 2003). Though Merleau-Ponty agreed, he also seemed to have been making a different point—that skillful bodily activity conditions the spatiality of objects in the perceptual field. Whether Merleau-Ponty also wished to make the Husserlian point is not an issue I address here.
Because the two objects are the same actual and apparent size in external space, according to Merleau-Ponty, any perceived differences must be inferred or judged. “For science and for objective thought, an object seen a hundred paces away with a very small apparent size is indiscernible from the same object seen ten paces away and at a greater angle” (Merleau-Ponty 2012, p. 315).
This may be why Merleau-Ponty put “within reach” in scare quotes when he wrote, “I see which objects are ‘within reach’ or out of reach of my cane”—that is, to stress that near objects in bodily space have added significance because they are in immediate striking distance of the perceiver (Merleau-Ponty 2012, p. 144).
There are other accounts of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of bodily space and, more generally, the role of the body in structuring perceptual space (Morris 2004; Barbaras 2006; Gutting 2010). There are also accounts of the relation of spatial perception to phenomenology, but not of the moving body per se (Heelan 1983; Stöker 1987; Plomer 1991; Cataldi 1993).
The technical use of “personal space” here is different than the term’s more familiar use. In ordinary language, “personal space” refers to a kind of socially constructed zone surrounding one’s body whose encroachment may feel uncomfortable or threatening.
A well-wrought summary of the research conducted on this topic can be found in “Action-Dependent Plasticity in Peripersonal Space Representations” (Làdavas and Serino 2008).
There are other unconsidered interpretations of the data that, though intriguing, I do not discuss. One reason, which I discuss later, is that there already are well-established empirical data supporting the unconsidered interpretation.
There seems to have been (at least) one notable exception. In an experiment conducted in 1996, Atsushi Iriki, Michio Tanaka, and Yoshiaki Iwamura found neural activation in monkeys’ intraparietal sulcus when presented with a raisin that was within arm’s reach, but not so when presented with a raisin that was out of reach. The monkeys were then given a rake. And the results adapted accordingly. Iriki et al. found neural activation in the monkeys’ intraparietal sulcus when presented with a raisin that was out of arm’s reach but still within rake’s reach. A careful reading reveals Iriki et al. were aware that their data are consistent with two interpretations: an expansion of peripersonal space (“this phenomenon implies that the structure of peripersonal space has been modified”) or an expansion of personal space (“alternatively…by using a tool as an extension of the hand, the image of the hand was expanded to include the tip of the tool, resulting in the extension of the visual receptive field”) (Iriki et al. 1996, p. 2329). Nevertheless, Iriki et al.’s 1996 experiment is often cited in articles as evidence supporting peripersonal space plasticity.
Many early studies on peripersonal space and tool use were conducted on monkeys, using PET and fMRI scans (Rizzolatti et al. 1981; Rizzolatti et al. 1983; Iriki et al. 1996). Recently, similar studies have been conducted on human subjects using PET and fMRI scans (Weiss et al. 2003; Makin et al. 2007). In both monkey and human studies, however, normal movement is severely restricted: either because the monkeys are strapped to chairs and partially anesthetized (unable to move their heads, necks, or trunks) or because human subjects are instructed to remain motionless in the narrow PET and fMRI scanners in order to get clean films. If peripersonal space is indeed delimited by the range of skillful bodily activity, when action is limited in these ways, it is hard to know how to interpret the results. For this reason, I do not discuss them here.
The areas affected were her right frontal, temporal and occipital lobes, the inferior and superior parietal lobes, the right basal ganglia, and the insula (Berti and Frassinetti 2000).
Berti and Frassinetti write, “the remarkable result of the present experiment is that the use of a stick, by extending the body schema to include the space accessible by the stick, influenced the patient's computation of space” (Berti and Frassinetti 2000, p. 418). A close reading does not clarify to what “body schema” refers. The term seems to have had many different meanings and synonyms since it entered the literature in the early twentieth century (Head and Holmes 1911; Bergson 1912; Schilder 1923; Llhermitte 1998). Even Merleau-Ponty blurred the boundaries between “body schema” and other related terms—perhaps even on purpose—creating a terminological morass in the phenomenological tradition (Merleau-Ponty 1963; Merleau-Ponty 2003; Merleau-Ponty 2012). The term remains troublesome across discourses (Gallagher 1986; Campbell 1998; O’Shaughnessy 1998; Morris 2004). As such, I have chosen to avoid it here.
Longo and Lourenco found a small but constant left displacement when subjects used the stick, which Longo and Lourenco attribute to neural activity in the right posterior parietal cortex—an area associated with representations of sensory stimuli in peripersonal space (Longo and Lourenco 2006, p. 980).
Witt et al. at the same time conducted another experiment to determine whether there was a “cognitive correction” at work—that is, subjects perceived the targets to be the same distance, but for other reasons (e.g., inference from reachability to closeness) estimated their distances differentially. The data suggest that there was no cognitive correction and that it was the perception of distance that changed (Witt et al. 2005).
There is even an equivocation in Witt et al.’s choice of “hand tool”—which could mean either a tool meant to be used with one’s hand or the incorporation of a tool into one’s hand.
In the 1998 experiment conducted by Botvinick and Cohen, a subject is seated with her left hand resting on a table. A screen hides the subject’s real left hand from view, while a life-sized rubber hand is placed directly in front of her. With eyes fixed on the rubber hand, Botvinik and Cohen used two paintbrushes to simultaneously stroke both the subject’s real hand and the rubber hand. After a few minutes, the subject reported that she felt the stroke of the paintbrush on the rubber hand (not on her real hand). The “rubber hand illusion,” as it is now called, is paradigmatic of how easily the incorporation of artifacts into personal space can occur (Iriki et al. 1996; Yamamoto and Kitazawa 2001; Maravita and Iriki 2004; Tsakiris and Haggard 2005; Umiltà et al. 2008; Cardinali et al. 2009; Carlson et al. 2010; Crèem-Regehr 2010; Iriki 2010).
There is an arguable difference between extensions of the body due to tool use and extensions of the body due to prosthetic use that I do not address here (De Preester and Tsakiris 2009).
I am employing Daniel Dennett’s classic distinction between personal levels of explanation and subpersonal levels of explanation (Dennett 1969)
Rizzolatti continues to be cognizant of the connection between his research and Merleau-Ponty’s work. In Mirrors in the Brain, Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia write, “objects are simply hypotheses of action and therefore places in space cannot be integrated as ‘objective positions’ in relation to an equally alleged objective position of the body, but must be understood, as Merleau-Ponty pointed out, in their ‘marking, in our vicinity, the varying range of our aims and gestures.’ This range dictates our possibility of distinguishing between peripersonal as opposed to extrapersonal space and of understanding the dynamic nature of the boundary that separates one from the other” (Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia 2008, p. 77). The links between bodily activity and perceptual space, the distinction between near space and far space, and the plasticity of the boundaries of peripersonal space are all established here. Also implied is the claim that bodily activity (not mere bodily movements) structures perceptual space, a claim repeatedly offered by Merleau-Ponty. Other articles also integrate aspects of Merleau-Ponty’s idea of motor intentionality and neural representations of perceptual space (Varela et al. 1991; Petitot 2000; Pachoud 2007; Sinigaglia 2008; Cappuccio 2009; Costantini et al. 2011; Butterfill and Sinigaglia 2012).
Learning to play an instrument or a sport with sufficient expertise also would qualify, but these behavioral tasks would be too difficult to acquire in one lab visit. Instead, I listed a few examples of skill development that may be learned (and unlearned) quickly. It would be interesting, though, whether developing musical or athletic expertise manifests changes to the boundaries of peripersonal space over extended periods of time.
Does the phenomenology support promiscuity at the personal level? Looking to Merleau-Ponty, the answer is uncertain. He wrote, “to habituate oneself to a hat, an automobile, or a cane is to take up residence in them, or inversely, to make them participate within the voluminosity of one’s own body. Habit expresses the power we have of dilating our being in the world, or of altering our existence through incorporating new instruments” (Merleau-Ponty 2012, pp. 144–145). At first glance, this quotation reads like an endorsement of promiscuity. But upon closer examination, it is unclear whether the “participation” or “residence” of artifacts ever becomes total, in the sense that my arms do not merely “participate” or “reside” in my own body but rather are wholly part of my own body.
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Jackson, G.B. Skillful action in peripersonal space. Phenom Cogn Sci 13, 313–334 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-013-9301-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-013-9301-7