Calvert

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TamÃ¨

Yamada

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Alexander Jones

Bettina Forster

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Body in mind

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Jones, A. & Forster, B. (2015). Body in Mind. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(56), pp. 1-2. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00056 City Research OnlineOriginal citation: Jones, A. & Forster, B. (2015). Body in Mind. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(56), pp. 1-2. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00056 Permanent City Research Online URL: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/6406/ Copyright & reuseCity University London has developed City Research Online so that its users may access the research outputs of City University London's staff. Copyright © and Moral Rights for this paper are retained by the individual author(s) and/ or other copyright holders.  All material in City Research Online is checked for eligibility for copyright before being made available in the live archive. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to from other web pages. Versions of researchThe version in City Research Online may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check the Permanent City Research Online URL above for the status of the paper.EnquiriesIf you have any enquiries about any aspect of City Research Online, or if you wish to make contact with the author(s) of this paper, please email the team at publications@city.ac.uk.EDITORIALpublished: 30 January 2015doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00056Body in mindAlexander Jones 1* and Bettina Forster 21Department of Psychology, Middlesex University London, London, UK2 Department of Psychology, City University London, London, UK*Correspondence: a.j.jones@mdx.ac.ukEdited and reviewed by:Eddy J. Davelaar, Birkbeck, University of London, UKKeywords: body in mind, tactile, touch, somatosensory, attention, Somatosensory Evoked Potentials (SEP)The sense of touch is imperative in cognition, development, andfor how we perceive the world and interact with others. The skinenvelopes our body and is our largest organ providing us withinformation about our immediate environment. In addition tothis “surface” information, our somatosensory system also pro-cesses information regarding body position and internal bodilystates. The importance of processing information to our bodyis unlikely to be disputed, however, relatively little research hasfocused on the somatosensory system and the body sense as com-pared to vision and audition. The last two decades have howeverseen an increased interest in the body sense from a range ofdifferent perspectives, using different methodologies which thisresearch topic aimed to reflect.The broad range of unanswered research questions relat-ing to the body is also mirrored by the contributions in thisresearch topic. We are constantly bombarded with tactile infor-mation, such as from the clothes on our body, or the chair wesit upon, yet we are able to process only what is relevant tous. Mechanisms of selective attentions help to prioritize, pre-dict and select information relevant to the situation and to guideour behavior. Selectively attending to a location on the body hasrepeatedly shown to enhance processing of stimuli at attendedover unattended location (e.g., Jones and Forster, 2014). In thisresearch topic, Tamè et al. (2014) showed that detection of atactile stimulus is dependent upon concurrent presented stim-uli which may act as a detection mask, even though the maskis presented at different fingers or hands. Somatosensory infor-mation is not typically presented in isolation but the sense oftouch is also integrated with other modalities (for an overviewsee Calvert et al., 2004). Using event-related potentials (ERPs),Staines et al. (2014) showed how visual information relevant tomovements modulates somatosensory processing. In a compre-hensive review, Heed and Azañón, 2014) explored the findingsof how we localize touch to our body. Touch can be localizedboth using somatotopic but also external coordinates. That is,where on the skin was the stimulus, or where based on exter-nal spatial co-ordinates did the tactile stimulus appear. Theiroverview focuses on how temporal order judgment (TOJ) taskshave been a fruitful paradigm to investigate tactile spatial process-ing. External and somatotopic maps were also shown, using ERPs,to be affected by where vision is directed (Gherri and Forster,2014).Observing others being touched as well as the social aspectof touch are important parts of everyday life and this has alsorecently attracted increased research interest. In particular, in thisresearch topic Gillmeister (2014) introduced a new behavioralparadigm to measure how observing touch on another person’shand influences the perception of one’s own touch. Moreover,Farmer et al. (2014) showed how induced changes in body own-ership through observation of touch applied to another person’shand of a different skin color can modulate social attitudes. Asimilar emerging and interesting research area, briefly coveredin this research topic, is how we use interoceptive cues and howthe sense of self develops (Sel, 2014). Last but not least, a studyinvestigating the touch and weight perception on aesthetic appre-ciation points to an important role of one’s own body perceptionin aesthetic perception (Yamada et al., 2014). Together, theserecent, seemingly divers studies could fall under the term embod-ied cognition which now encompasses seemingly diverse fieldsof psychology highlighting the influence of the body in mind oncognition in general.This research topic brings together both research from well-established paradigms and research areas as well as highlightinghow the body and the sense of touch is also being explored innew ways. The contributions here show there are a broad rangeof perspectives and questions to be addressed when processingstimuli to and within our body. The increased interest in the senseof touch over the last decades will hopefully continue as much stillremains to be explored.REFERENCESCalvert, G. A., Spence, C., and Stein, B. E. (2004). The Handbook of MultisensoryProcesses. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Farmer, H., Maister, L., and Tsakiris, M. (2014). Change my body, change mymind: the effects of illusory ownership of an outgroup hand on implicit atti-tudes toward that outgroup. Front. Psychol. 4:1016. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.01016Gherri, E., and Forster, B. (2014). Attention to the body depends on eye-in-orbitposition. Front. Psychol. 5:683. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00683Gillmeister, H. (2014). A new perceptual paradigm to investigate the visual remap-ping of others’ tactile sensations onto one’s own body shows “mirror touch” forthe hands. Front. Psychol. 5:95. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00095Heed, T., and Azañón, E. (2014). Using time to investigate space: a review of tactiletemporal order judgments as a window onto spatial processing in touch. Front.Psychol. 5:76. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00076Jones, A., and Forster, B. (2014), Neural correlates of endogenous attention, exoge-nous attention and inhibition of return in touch. Eur. J. Neurosci. 40, 2389–2398.doi: 10.1111/ejn.12583Sel, A. (2014). Predictive codes of interoception, emotion, and the self. Front.Psychol. 5:189. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00189Staines, W. R., Popovich, C., Legon, J. K., and Adams, M. S. (2014). Early modality-specific somatosensory cortical regions are modulated by attended visual stim-uli: interaction of vision, touch, and behavioral intent. Front. Psychol. 5:351. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00351www.frontiersin.org January 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 56 | 1Jones and Forster Body in mindTamè, L., Moles, A., and Holmes, N. P. (2014). Within, but not betweenhands interactions in vibrotactile detection thresholds reflect somatosensoryreceptive field organization. Front. Psychol. 5:174. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00174Yamada, Y., Harada, S., Choi, W., Fujino, R., Tokunaga, A., Gao, Y.,et al. (2014). Weight lifting can facilitate appreciative comprehensionfor museum exhibits. Front. Psychol. 5:307. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00307Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that the research was con-ducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could beconstrued as a potential conflict of interest.Received: 17 December 2014; accepted: 12 January 2015; published online: 30 January2015.Citation: Jones A and Forster B (2015) Body in mind. Front. Psychol. 6:56. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00056This article was submitted to Cognitive Science, a section of the journal Frontiers inPsychology.Copyright © 2015 Jones and Forster. This is an open-access article distributed underthe terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribu-tion or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s)or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, inaccordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction ispermitted which does not comply with these terms.Frontiers in Psychology | Cognitive Science January 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 56 | 2

Body in Mind

Alexander eJones

Bettina eForster

Directory of Open Access Journals

EDITORIAL
published: 30 January 2015
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00056
Body in mind
Alexander Jones1* and Bettina Forster2
1 Department of Psychology, Middlesex University London, London, UK
2 Department of Psychology, City University London, London, UK
*Correspondence: a.j.jones@mdx.ac.uk
Edited and reviewed by:
Eddy J. Davelaar, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
Keywords: body in mind, tactile, touch, somatosensory, attention, Somatosensory Evoked Potentials (SEP)
The sense of touch is imperative in cognition, development, and
for how we perceive the world and interact with others. The skin
envelopes our body and is our largest organ providing us with
information about our immediate environment. In addition to
this “surface” information, our somatosensory system also pro-
cesses information regarding body position and internal bodily
states. The importance of processing information to our body
is unlikely to be disputed, however, relatively little research has
focused on the somatosensory system and the body sense as com-
pared to vision and audition. The last two decades have however
seen an increased interest in the body sense from a range of
different perspectives, using different methodologies which this
research topic aimed to reflect.
The broad range of unanswered research questions relat-
ing to the body is also mirrored by the contributions in this
research topic. We are constantly bombarded with tactile infor-
mation, such as from the clothes on our body, or the chair we
sit upon, yet we are able to process only what is relevant to
us. Mechanisms of selective attentions help to prioritize, pre-
dict and select information relevant to the situation and to guide
our behavior. Selectively attending to a location on the body has
repeatedly shown to enhance processing of stimuli at attended
over unattended location (e.g., Jones and Forster, 2014). In this
research topic, Tamè et al. (2014) showed that detection of a
tactile stimulus is dependent upon concurrent presented stim-
uli which may act as a detection mask, even though the mask
is presented at different fingers or hands. Somatosensory infor-
mation is not typically presented in isolation but the sense of
touch is also integrated with other modalities (for an overview
see Calvert et al., 2004). Using event-related potentials (ERPs),
Staines et al. (2014) showed how visual information relevant to
movements modulates somatosensory processing. In a compre-
hensive review, Heed and Azañón, 2014) explored the findings
of how we localize touch to our body. Touch can be localized
both using somatotopic but also external coordinates. That is,
where on the skin was the stimulus, or where based on exter-
nal spatial co-ordinates did the tactile stimulus appear. Their
overview focuses on how temporal order judgment (TOJ) tasks
have been a fruitful paradigm to investigate tactile spatial process-
ing. External and somatotopic maps were also shown, using ERPs,
to be affected by where vision is directed (Gherri and Forster,
2014).
Observing others being touched as well as the social aspect
of touch are important parts of everyday life and this has also
recently attracted increased research interest. In particular, in this
research topic Gillmeister (2014) introduced a new behavioral
paradigm to measure how observing touch on another person’s
hand influences the perception of one’s own touch. Moreover,
Farmer et al. (2014) showed how induced changes in body own-
ership through observation of touch applied to another person’s
hand of a different skin color can modulate social attitudes. A
similar emerging and interesting research area, briefly covered
in this research topic, is how we use interoceptive cues and how
the sense of self develops (Sel, 2014). Last but not least, a study
investigating the touch and weight perception on aesthetic appre-
ciation points to an important role of one’s own body perception
in aesthetic perception (Yamada et al., 2014). Together, these
recent, seemingly divers studies could fall under the term embod-
ied cognition which now encompasses seemingly diverse fields
of psychology highlighting the influence of the body in mind on
cognition in general.
This research topic brings together both research from well-
established paradigms and research areas as well as highlighting
how the body and the sense of touch is also being explored in
new ways. The contributions here show there are a broad range
of perspectives and questions to be addressed when processing
stimuli to and within our body. The increased interest in the sense
of touch over the last decades will hopefully continue as much still
remains to be explored.
REFERENCES
Calvert, G. A., Spence, C., and Stein, B. E. (2004). The Handbook of Multisensory
Processes. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Farmer, H., Maister, L., and Tsakiris, M. (2014). Change my body, change my
mind: the effects of illusory ownership of an outgroup hand on implicit atti-
tudes toward that outgroup. Front. Psychol. 4:1016. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.
01016
Gherri, E., and Forster, B. (2014). Attention to the body depends on eye-in-orbit
position. Front. Psychol. 5:683. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00683
Gillmeister, H. (2014). A new perceptual paradigm to investigate the visual remap-
ping of others’ tactile sensations onto one’s own body shows “mirror touch” for
the hands. Front. Psychol. 5:95. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00095
Heed, T., and Azañón, E. (2014). Using time to investigate space: a review of tactile
temporal order judgments as a window onto spatial processing in touch. Front.
Psychol. 5:76. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00076
Jones, A., and Forster, B. (2014), Neural correlates of endogenous attention, exoge-
nous attention and inhibition of return in touch. Eur. J. Neurosci. 40, 2389–2398.
doi: 10.1111/ejn.12583
Sel, A. (2014). Predictive codes of interoception, emotion, and the self. Front.
Psychol. 5:189. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00189
Staines, W. R., Popovich, C., Legon, J. K., and Adams, M. S. (2014). Early modality-
specific somatosensory cortical regions are modulated by attended visual stim-
uli: interaction of vision, touch, and behavioral intent. Front. Psychol. 5:351. doi:
10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00351
www.frontiersin.org January 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 56 | 1
Jones and Forster Body in mind
Tamè, L., Moles, A., and Holmes, N. P. (2014). Within, but not between
hands interactions in vibrotactile detection thresholds reflect somatosensory
receptive field organization. Front. Psychol. 5:174. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.
00174
Yamada, Y., Harada, S., Choi, W., Fujino, R., Tokunaga, A., Gao, Y.,
et al. (2014). Weight lifting can facilitate appreciative comprehension
for museum exhibits. Front. Psychol. 5:307. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.
00307
Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that the research was con-
ducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be
construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Received: 17 December 2014; accepted: 12 January 2015; published online: 30 January
2015.
Citation: Jones A and Forster B (2015) Body in mind. Front. Psychol. 6:56. doi:
10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00056
This article was submitted to Cognitive Science, a section of the journal Frontiers in
Psychology.
Copyright © 2015 Jones and Forster. This is an open-access article distributed under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribu-
tion or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s)
or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in
accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is
permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Frontiers in Psychology | Cognitive Science January 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 56 | 2


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