1,721,236 research outputs found
Imagination after neurological losses of movement and sensation: The experience of spinal cord injury
No full textTo what extent is imagination dependent on embodied experience? In attempting to answer such questions I consider the experiences of those who have to come to terms with altered neurological function, namely those with spinal cord injury at the neck. These people have each lost all sensation and movement below the neck. How might these new ways of living affect their imagination
The phenomenology of agency and intention in the face of paralysis and insentience
No full textStudies of perception have focussed on sensation, though more recently the perception of action has, once more, become the subject of investigation. These studies have looked at acute experimental situations. The present paper discusses the subjective experience of those with either clinical syndromes of loss of movement or sensation (spinal cord injury, sensory neuronopathy syndrome or motor stroke), or with experimental paralysis or sensory loss. The differing phenomenology of these is explored and their effects on intention and agency discussed. It is shown that sensory loss can have effects on the focussing of motor command and that for some a sense of agency can return despite paralysis
Conférence d'ouverture
No full textCole Jonathan R. Conférence d'ouverture. In: Diplômées, n°186, 1998. Séminaire AFFDU - Currier 25-26 mars 1998. pp. 198-204
Impaired embodiment and intersubjectivity
No full textThis paper considers the importance of the body for self-esteem, communication, and emotional expression and experience, through the reflections of those who live with various neurological impairments of movement and sensation; sensory deafferentation, spinal cord injury and Möbius Syndrome (the congenital absence of facial expression). People with severe sensory loss, who require conscious attention and visual feedback for movement, describe the imperative to use the same strategies to reacquire gesture, to appear normal and have embodied expression. Those paralysed after spinal cord injury struggle to have others see them as people rather than as people in wheelchairs and have been active in the disability movement, distinguishing between their medical impairment and the social induced disability others project onto them. Lastly those with Möbius reveal the importance of the face for emotional expression and communication and indeed for emotional experience itself. All these examples explore the crucial role of the body as agent for social and personal expression and self-esteem. <br/
Empathy needs a face
No full textThe importance of the face is best understood, it is suggested, from the effects of visible facial difference in people. Their experience reflects the ways in which the face may be necessary for the interpersonal relatedness underlying such 'sharing' mind states as empathy. It is proposed that the face evolved as a result of several evolutionary pressures but that it is well placed to assume the role of an embodied representation of the increasingly refined inner states of mind that developed as primates became more social, and required more complex social intelligence.The consequences of various forms of facial disfigurement on interpersonal relatedness and intersubjectivity are then discussed. These narratives reveal the importance of the face in the development of the self-esteem that seems a prerequisite of being able to initiate, and enter, relationships between people. Such experiences are beyond normal experience and, as such, require an extended understanding of the other: to understand facial difference requires empathy. But, in addition, it is also suggested that empathy itself is supported by, and requires, the embodied expression and communication of emotion that the face provides
The invisible smile: living without facial expression
No full textWe are defined by our faces. They give identity but, equally importantly, reveal our moods and emotions through facial expression. So what happens when the face cannot move?
This book is about people who live with Möbius Syndrome, which has as its main feature an absence of movement of the muscles of facial expression from birth. People with Möbius cannot smile, frown, or look surprised or sad. Talking and eating are problematic, since their lips do not move. Even looking around is also difficult since the eyes cannot move either. The book is unique in giving those with Möbius a voice, allowing children and adults with the condition to explain what it is like. These fascinating biographies reveal much about the relations between face and facial expression, and emotional expression and emotional experience which we normally take for granted. The narratives also show the creative ways in which those with Möbius construct their lives and how they come to terms with and express their identities with, and yet, beyond their faces. Some with Möbius have been thought to have learning difficulties and autism, since an impassive immobile face has been assumed to reflect inner cognitive problems. This book criticises such work and asks people to look not only at the face but beyond it to see the person. Throughout the book, several themes emerge, of which perhaps the most surprising is the reduced emotional experience those with Möbius can have as children and young adults and the journeys they go on as they realise this and then assimilate emotion from the outside in
Vestibular-evoked postural responses in the absence of somatosensory information
No full textIn order to investigate the ways in which sensory channels interact to control balance, we measured the postural response evoked by galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) in a rare subject (I. W.) with a large-fibre sensory neuronopathy. I. W. has no sensations of cutaneous light touch and movement/position sense below the neck, and without vision he has no knowledge of where his limbs and body are in space. He was tested with and without vision while seated. With eyes closed, I. W.’s responses to pure vestibular stimuli were an order of magnitude larger than those of healthy controls. In other respects his responses were normal. Part of this phenomenon may have been due to lack of response modification by somatosensory feedback. However, the initial development of his ground reaction force, which is the earliest mechanical indicator of the response, differed from that of a control subject from its beginning. Similarly, opening his eyes resulted in a reduction (>50%) of the response from its beginning. We propose that these early changes reflect changes in initial response selection, possibly by alterations in the gain of vestibulopostural channels. We suggest that similar gain changes operate in healthy subjects and occur through a fast dynamic process. A model is put forward in which the weight of each sensory channel is adjusted continuously in a competitive manner according to the balance-relevant information content of the other sensory channels. As a secondary issue, the nature of I. W.’s head and trunk tilt response provides insight into the question of which vestibular afferents are recruited by GVS. I. W.’s responses consisted of an initial, relatively fast tilt followed by a slower, continuous tilt. When the stimulus was turned off, his body partially tilted back at an intermediate velocity. We modelled this behaviour as the algebraic sum of a position response and a constant velocity response. We suggest that these two components arise from stimulation of otolith and semicircular canal afferents, respectivel
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