The Recurrent Model of Bodily Spatial Phenomenology

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce and defend the recurrent model for understanding bodily spatial phenomenology. While Longo, Azañón and Haggard (2010) propose a bottom-up model, Bermúdez (2017) emphasises the top-down aspect of the information-processing loop. We argue that both are only half of the story. Section 1 introduces what the issues are. Section 2 starts by explaining why the top-down, descending direction is necessary with the illustration from the “bodybased tactile rescaling” paradigm (de Vignemont, Ehrsson and Haggard, 2005). It then argues that the bottom-up, ascending direction is also necessary, and substantiates this view with recent research on skin space and tactile field (Haggard, Cheng, Beck, and Fardo, 2017). Section 3 discusses the model’s application to body ownership and bodily self-representation. Implications also extend to topics such as sense modality individuation (Macpherson, 2011), the constancy-based view of perception (Burge, 2010), and the perception/cognition divide (Firestone and Scholl, 2016).