The Interpersonal Bodily Self. A link between body and social interactions

Recent research emphasized the importance of one’s own body representation in interpersonal attitudes, revealing the social valence of body representation. The present thesis contribute to the emerging field of research that suggests the existence of a causal link between central body representations and more social and cognitive aspects of the self. The first two studies investigate the cognitive consequences of having an invisible body. The first study showed that the illusion of having an invisible body modulates the interpersonal space, i.e. the distance that people maintain between each other during a social interaction and into which intrusions by others may cause discomfort. The second study shows that the experience of invisibility affects also the perception of gaze direction itself, reducing the range of eyes deviations that participants perceived as directed toward the self. Thus, the experience of invisibility may affect the manner in which we process the attention of others toward the self. The last two studies focus on the difference between interpersonal and peripersonal space, i.e a functional representation of the reaching space. Results from third study showed that a change in body height reveals a dissociation between interpersonal and peripersonal space. The illusion of having a tall body reduced the interpersonal space, but extended the perceived peripersonal space. On the other hand, the illusion of having a short body extended the interpersonal space, leaving the peripersonal space intact. Finally the last study focuses more in depth on the notion of body schema, i.e. a sensorimotor representation of the body used for planning and executing movements. In particular, it was shown that body schema and peripersonal space extent depend on the sense of agency, that is the sense of controlling one’s own motor acts and, through them, the events in the external environment