Gaëlle Keromnes,
Sylvie Chokron,
Macarena-Paz Celume,
Alain Berthoz,
Michel Botbol,
Roberto Canitano,
Foucaud Du Boisgueheneuc,
Nemat Jaafari,
Nathalie Lavenne-Collot,
Brice Martin,
Tom Motillon,
Bérangère Thirioux,
Valeria Scandurra,
Moritz Wehrmann,
Ahmad Ghanizadeh &
Sylvie Tordjman
Abstract
An historical review of the concepts of self-consciousness is presented, highlighting the important role of the body (particularly, body perception but also body action) and the social other in the construction of self-consciousness. More precisely, body perception, especially intermodal sensory perception including kinesthetic perception, is involved in the construction of a sense of self allowing self-nonself differentiation. Furthermore, the social other, through very early social and emotional interactions, provides meaning to the infant’s perception and contributes to the development of his/her symbolization capacities. This is a necessary condition for body image representation and awareness of a permanent self in a time-space continuum (invariant over time and space). Self-image recognition impairments in the mirror are also discussed regarding a comprehensive developmental theory of self-consciousness. Then, a neuropsychological and neurophysiological approach to self-consciousness reviews the role of complex brain activation/integration pathways and the mirror neuron system in self-consciousness. Finally, this article offers new perspectives on self-consciousness evaluation using the mirror as an experimental paradigm to study self- and other- image and body recognition.