(in Polish) The sense of body ownership from a cognitive neuroscience perspective

elective courses

Remote learning

The aim of this seminar is to introduce students to the cognitive neuroscience of bodily awareness; this fast-growing field has important implications for basic research, as well as clinical and technological applications.

The distinction between what is one’s own body and what is not is critical for survival and thus fundamentally important for human perception, action, and cognition. Some individuals with damage to their frontal and parietal brain regions fail to recognize their paralyzed limbs as their own, even though their basic senses of vision and touch are intact. What perceptual and neural mechanisms underlie the sense of bodily awareness? During this course, students will learn about the relevance of bodily self-awareness, its neurocognitive mechanisms, and state-of-the-art methods for testing it in the laboratory. Theoretical models, as well as practical implications for modern prosthetics and robotics, will also be discussed.

Textbook: Alsmith, A. J. T. & Longo, M. R. (2022). The Routledge Handbook of Bodily Awareness, 1st Ed., Routledge: New York.

1. Philosophical and historical considerations (chapters 3, 9, 10)

2. Neurological and psychiatric disorders of bodily awareness (chapters 20, 24-28)

3. Developmental origins of own body perception (chapter 19)

4. Bodily illusions (chapter 15)

5. Neural evidence, theoretical models, and practical implications (chapter 12-15)

After the course, students will be able to:

- Define the relevance of bodily awareness

- Identify clinical disorders of body representation

- Explain the rationale and procedures of the so-called ‘bodily illusions’

- Describe neuroscientific evidence on bodily awareness

- Identify and compare different theoretical models of bodily self-awareness

Assessment methods and criteria

Group assignment (20 points)

Final test (80 points)

Grading:

>95 pts – 5!

90-95 – 5

80-89 – 4.5

70-79 – 4

65-69 – 3.5

60-64 – 3

Attendance rules: Maximum 1 unexcused absence is allowed.

Academic honesty: Students must respect the principles of academic integrity. Cheating and plagiarism (including copying work from other students, internet or other sources) are serious violations that are punishable and instructors are required to report all cases to the administration.