Multisensory contributions to the development of body representation

The representation of the body and the sense of body ownership are the product of complex mechanisms, and adult studies have suggested that a crucial role is played by multisensory interactions of body-related signals, such as vision, touch and proprioception. In my talk I will present a series of studies conducted at different stages of development (from infancy to childhood) that suggest that multisensory cues not only shape body representation but play either a facilitating or constraining role depending on age. In particular, I will show that very early in life, infants are able to extract the amodal invariant that is common across senses (e.g., rhythm, tempo), and this predisposes them to be naturally attracted to redundant multisensory stimuli. Infants can also extract the social component conveyed by multisensory stimuli, as observed in a recent study in which we found that 4 months-old infants show less arousing responses (as indexed through skin conductance response) to slow/affective touches coupled with a female face than to multisensory non-social stimuli (a discriminative-type of touch coupled with seeing houses). Interestingly, I will show that later in development, children lack to integrate the senses, and this prevents them from being susceptible to classical multisensory body illusions, such as the rubber hand illusion. Finally, I will show that sensory experience, such as vision, contributes to the development of multisensory interactions, and that lack of visual input – as in congenital blindness – prevents blind individuals to have a typical body representation