The development of own-body representation in childhood.

感知自己的身体对于能够感知世界并采取行动至关重要。但是我们要怎么做呢？想象一下，我可以看到两只手放在我面前的桌子上。一个是我的，一个是我朋友的。我怎么分辨哪个是哪个？这似乎是一个显而易见的问题，但仔细考虑一下却并非如此。事实上，研究告诉我们，成年人使用几种不同类型的信息，包括多感官视觉、触觉和运动线索；并储存了关于自己手的形状的知识。一个更困难的问题是，孩子们如何在儿童时期不断的成长和变化中识别自己的身体。对此我们所知甚少。特别是，目前还不清楚孩子们是如何平衡对自己身体的一致看法的需要，以及随着身体的增长而灵活的需要。此外，新的虚拟现实技术正在出现，可以在游戏或教育环境中为儿童提供虚拟身体。孩子们会如何接受和使用这些虚拟身体呢？这个为期3年的项目通过调查儿童和成人如何看待自己的身体，以及这是如何形成身体自我意识的基础，来解决这些问题。我们将进行五个精心设计的实验，以我们以前在儿童身上成功使用的方法为基础。项目团队具备开展这项开创性工作所需的理论和技术背景；我们的实验室有合适的设备；该提案包括先前公布的和试点数据，显示了该方法的可行性。我们将使用“橡胶手错觉”实验来检验自己的身体表征。参与者看到他们面前的桌子上有一只假手，而他们的真手被藏起来。实验者同时抚摸双手。这让参与者觉得假手是他们自己的。此外，当被要求指着自己的手下面时，他们会指着假手附近。我们最近的研究表明，4 - 13岁的孩子会有这种错觉。在这里，我们将测量当假手的大小或形状改变时会发生什么。如果参与者在这些情况下体验到的错觉较少，这表明他们对自己的手应该是什么样子有期望。基于之前的工作，实验1和2将测试儿童和成人都认为手必须是五指的假设；而且手的大小必须大致合适。至关重要的是，我们还将确定这些身体表征是否具有可塑性，使儿童能够接受例如比自己更大的手来解释成长。实验3-5将检验给定运动身体的经验，身体表征是如何改变的。儿童是否比成人更快地从经验中学习，例如，接受一只超大的手需要更少的动作经验？触摸信息是如何与运动结合起来形成身体自我感觉的？在这样的环境中，孩子们接受自己身体的极限是什么？该项目的学术成果将为儿童如何表现自己的身体提供重要的新信息。这是一个心理学和计算机科学之间的跨学科项目，其研究结果将对心理学、计算机科学、哲学和认知科学等一系列学科产生重大意义和兴趣。这项工作也将产生非学术影响。我们将把研究结果传达给虚拟现实游戏的设计者，以及开发仿生手臂或使用虚拟康复方案的医疗从业人员。最后，我们将以作品为跳板，邀请儿童志愿者参加一系列的感官和运动工作坊。通过这些活动，我们希望鼓励他们从事STEM活动或职业。

Perceiving one's own body is crucial for being able to perceive the world and act on it. But how do we do this? Imagine that I can see two hands resting on the table in front of me. One is mine, and one belongs to my friend. How do I tell which is which? This seems like an obvious question, but on consideration it is not. In fact, research has told us that adults use several different types of information, including multisensory visual, tactile, and movement cues; and stored knowledge about the form of their own hand. A more difficult question is how children manage to identify their own bodies in the midst of the constant growth and change which occurs in childhood. Very little is known about this. In particular, it is unclear how children balance the need for a consistent idea of their own body, and the need to be flexible as it grows. Further, new virtual reality technologies are emerging which can provide virtual bodies to children in games or educational settings. How might children accept and use these virtual bodies?This 3-year project addresses these issues by investigating how children and adults perceive their own bodies, and how this grounds the emerging sense of bodily self. We will run five carefully designed experiments, building on methods which we have previously used successfully with children. The project team have the theoretical and technical backgrounds necessary to carry out this pioneering work; our lab has suitable equipment; and the proposal includes previous published and pilot data showing the feasibility of the approach.We will experimentally examine own-body representation using the 'Rubber Hand Illusion'. The participant sees a fake hand on the table in front of them while their real hand is hidden. An experimenter strokes the hands at the same time. This makes the participant feel as if the fake hand is their own. Further, when asked to point underneath their own hand, they point near the fake hand. We have recently shown that 4 - 13-year-old children experience this illusion. Here, we will measure what happens when the size or shape of the fake hand is changed. If participants experience the illusion less in these cases, it shows that they have expectations for how their hand should look. Based on previous work, Experiments 1 and 2 will test the hypotheses that both children and adults will expect that a hand must be five-fingered; and that the hand must be approximately the right size. Crucially we will also determine whether there is plasticity in these body representations, enabling children to accept for example larger hands than their own to account for growth. Experiments 3-5 will examine how body representation may change given experience of a moving body. Do children learn more quickly from experience more than adults, for example requiring less movement experience to accept an oversized hand? How does touch information combined with movement in forming a sense of the bodily self? What are the limits of what children will accept as their own body in such an environment?The academic outputs of the project will provide vital new information on how children represent their bodies. This is an interdisciplinary project between Psychology and Computer Science, and its findings will be of major significance and interest across a range of disciplines - Psychology, Computer Science, Philosophy, and Cognitive Science. The work will also have non-academic impact. We will communicate findings to designers of virtual reality games, as well as healthcare practitioners developing bionic arms or using virtual rehabilitation programmes. Finally we will use the work as a springboard to invite volunteer children to a series of workshops examining the senses and movement. Through these we hope to encourage them towards STEM activities or careers.