ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: This study provides a comprehensive assessment of own body representation and linguistic representation of bodies in general in women with typical and atypical anorexia nervosa (AN). METHODS: In a series of desktop experiments, participants rated a set of adjectives according to their match with a series of computer generated bodies varying in body mass index, and generated prototypic body shapes for the same set of adjectives. We analysed how body mass index of the bodies was associated with positive or negative valence of the adjectives in the different groups. Further, body image and own body perception were assessed. RESULTS: In a German-Italian sample comprising 39 women with AN, 20 women with atypical AN and 40 age matched control participants, we observed effects indicative of weight stigmatization, but no significant differences between the groups. Generally, positive adjectives were associated with lean bodies, whereas negative adjectives were associated with obese bodies. DISCUSSION: Our observations suggest that patients with both typical and atypical AN affectively and visually represent body descriptions not differently from healthy women. We conclude that overvaluation of low body weight and fear of weight gain cannot be explained by generally distorted perception or cognition, but require individual consideration.
Subject(s)
Anorexia Nervosa , Body Image , Body Mass Index , Body Weight , Female , Humans , Linguistics , ThinnessABSTRACT
Our visual system can easily categorize objects (e.g. faces vs. bodies) and further differentiate them into subcategories (e.g. male vs. female). This ability is particularly important for objects of social significance, such as human faces and bodies. While many studies have demonstrated category selectivity to faces and bodies in the brain, how subcategories of faces and bodies are represented remains unclear. Here, we investigated how the brain encodes two prominent subcategories shared by both faces and bodies, sex and weight, and whether neural responses to these subcategories rely on low-level visual, high-level visual or semantic similarity. We recorded brain activity with fMRI while participants viewed faces and bodies that varied in sex, weight, and image size. The results showed that the sex of bodies can be decoded from both body- and face-responsive brain areas, with the former exhibiting more consistent size-invariant decoding than the latter. Body weight could also be decoded in face-responsive areas and in distributed body-responsive areas, and this decoding was also invariant to image size. The weight of faces could be decoded from the fusiform body area (FBA), and weight could be decoded across face and body stimuli in the extrastriate body area (EBA) and a distributed body-responsive area. The sex of well-controlled faces (e.g. excluding hairstyles) could not be decoded from face- or body-responsive regions. These results demonstrate that both face- and body-responsive brain regions encode information that can distinguish the sex and weight of bodies. Moreover, the neural patterns corresponding to sex and weight were invariant to image size and could sometimes generalize across face and body stimuli, suggesting that such subcategorical information is encoded with a high-level visual or semantic code.
Subject(s)
Brain Mapping/methods , Cerebral Cortex/physiology , Magnetic Resonance Imaging , Pattern Recognition, Visual/physiology , Adult , Facial Recognition/physiology , Female , Humans , Male , Multivariate Analysis , Photic Stimulation , Young AdultABSTRACT
This study uses novel biometric figure rating scales (FRS) spanning body mass index (BMI) 13.8 to 32.2 kg/m2 and BMI 18 to 42 kg/m2 . The aims of the study were (i) to compare FRS body weight dissatisfaction and perceptual distortion of women with anorexia nervosa (AN) to a community sample; (ii) how FRS parameters are associated with questionnaire body dissatisfaction, eating disorder symptoms and appearance comparison habits; and (iii) whether the weight spectrum of the FRS matters. Women with AN (n = 24) and a community sample of women (n = 104) selected their current and ideal body on the FRS and completed additional questionnaires. Women with AN accurately picked the body that aligned best with their actual weight in both FRS. Controls underestimated their BMI in the FRS 14-32 and were accurate in the FRS 18-42. In both FRS, women with AN desired a body close to their actual BMI and controls desired a thinner body. Our observations suggest that body image disturbance in AN is unlikely to be characterized by a visual perceptual disturbance, but rather by an idealization of underweight in conjunction with high body dissatisfaction. The weight spectrum of FRS can influence the accuracy of BMI estimation. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.
Subject(s)
Anorexia Nervosa/psychology , Body Image/psychology , Perceptual Distortion , Adult , Biometric Identification , Body Mass Index , Case-Control Studies , Female , Humans , Personal Satisfaction , Pilot Projects , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
The elongation of a figure or object can induce a perceptual bias regarding its area or volume estimation. This bias is notable in Piagetian experiments in which participants tend to consider elongated cylinders to contain more liquid than shorter cylinders of equal volume. We investigated whether similar perceptual biases could be found in volume judgments of surrounding indoor spaces and whether those judgments were viewpoint dependent. Participants compared a variety of computer-generated rectangular rooms with a square room in a psychophysical task. We found that the elongation bias in figures or objects was also present in volume comparison judgments of indoor spaces. Further, the direction of the bias (larger or smaller) depended on the observer's viewpoint. Similar results were obtained from a monoscopic computer display (Experiment 1) and stereoscopic head-mounted display with head tracking (Experiment 2). We used generalized linear mixed-effect models to model participants' volume judgments using a function of room depth and width. A good fit to the data was found when applying weight on the depth relative to the width, suggesting that participants' judgments were biased by egocentric properties of the space. We discuss how biases in comparative volume judgments of rooms might reflect the use of simplified strategies, such as anchoring on one salient dimension of the space.
Subject(s)
Perceptual Distortion/physiology , Size Perception/physiology , Space Perception/physiology , Adult , Bias , Female , Humans , Judgment , Male , Psychophysics , Young AdultABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to evaluate the degree to which display technologies influence the perception of size in an image. BACKGROUND: Research suggests that factors such as whether an image is displayed stereoscopically, whether a user's viewpoint is tracked, and the field of view of a given display can affect users' perception of scale in the displayed image. METHOD: Participants directly estimated the size of a gap by matching the distance between their hands to the gap width and judged their ability to pass unimpeded through the gap in one of five common implementations of three display technologies (two head-mounted displays [HMD] and a back-projection screen). RESULTS: Both measures of gap width were similar for the two HMD conditions and the back projection with stereo and tracking. For the displays without tracking, stereo and monocular conditions differed from each other, with monocular viewing showing underestimation of size. CONCLUSIONS: Display technologies that are capable of stereoscopic display and tracking of the user's viewpoint are beneficial as perceived size does not differ from real-world estimates. Evaluations of different display technologies are necessary as display conditions vary and the availability of different display technologies continues to grow. APPLICATIONS: The findings are important to those using display technologies for research, commercial, and training purposes when it is important for the displayed image to be perceived at an intended scale.
Subject(s)
Computer Graphics , Space Perception/physiology , User-Computer Interface , Adult , Depth Perception , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Task Performance and Analysis , Young AdultABSTRACT
The hand is a reliable and ecologically useful perceptual ruler that can be used to scale the sizes of close, manipulatable objects in the world in a manner similar to the way in which eye height is used to scale the heights of objects on the ground plane. Certain objects are perceived proportionally to the size of the hand, and as a result, changes in the relationship between the sizes of objects in the world and the size of the hand are attributed to changes in object size rather than hand size. To illustrate this notion, we provide evidence from several experiments showing that people perceive their dominant hand as less magnified than other body parts or objects when these items are subjected to the same degree of magnification. These findings suggest that the hand is perceived as having a more constant size and, consequently, can serve as a reliable metric with which to measure objects of commensurate size.
Subject(s)
Distance Perception , Hand , Size Perception , Adult , Female , Humans , Male , Young AdultABSTRACT
Learning a complex task such as table tennis is a challenging problem for both robots and humans. Even after acquiring the necessary motor skills, a strategy is needed to choose where and how to return the ball to the opponent's court in order to win the game. The data-driven identification of basic strategies in interactive tasks, such as table tennis, is a largely unexplored problem. In this paper, we suggest a computational model for representing and inferring strategies, based on a Markov decision problem, where the reward function models the goal of the task as well as the strategic information. We show how this reward function can be discovered from demonstrations of table tennis matches using model-free inverse reinforcement learning. The resulting framework allows to identify basic elements on which the selection of striking movements is based. We tested our approach on data collected from players with different playing styles and under different playing conditions. The estimated reward function was able to capture expert-specific strategic information that sufficed to distinguish the expert among players with different skill levels as well as different playing styles.
Subject(s)
Competitive Behavior/physiology , Cooperative Behavior , Movement/physiology , Psychomotor Performance/physiology , Reinforcement, Psychology , Visual Perception/physiology , Adult , Female , Goals , Humans , Male , Models, Biological , Sports , Young AdultABSTRACT
We examined how a highly familiar environmental space--one's city of residence--is represented in memory. Twenty-six participants faced a photo-realistic virtual model of their hometown and completed a task in which they pointed to familiar target locations from various orientations. Each participant's performance was most accurate when he or she was facing north, and errors increased as participants' deviation from a north-facing orientation increased. Pointing errors and latencies were not related to the distance between participants' initial locations and the target locations. Our results are inconsistent with accounts of orientation-free memory and with theories assuming that the storage of spatial knowledge depends on local reference frames. Although participants recognized familiar local views in their initial locations, their strategy for pointing relied on a single, north-oriented reference frame that was likely acquired from maps rather than experience from daily exploration. Even though participants had spent significantly more time navigating the city than looking at maps, their pointing behavior seemed to rely on a north-oriented mental map.
Subject(s)
Memory/physiology , Space Perception/physiology , Adolescent , Adult , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Psychomotor PerformanceABSTRACT
The aim of this work is to increase the effectiveness of real world medical training simulations by helping trainees gain a better understanding of the importance of communication and teamwork. Therefore we develop an online application which can be used together with real world simulations to improve training. To produce the online application we reconstructed two real world scenarios (one with students and one with practitioners) in an immersive virtual environment. Our application enables the trainees to view the scenario from different perspectives or to freely explore the environment. We aim to integrate it into the medical student curriculum at the University of Tübingen.
Subject(s)
Computer Simulation , Interdisciplinary Communication , Medical Staff, Hospital/education , Motion , Operating Rooms , User-Computer Interface , Humans , Patient Care TeamABSTRACT
Two experiments investigated the effects of landmarks and body-based information on route knowledge. Participants made four out-and-back journeys along a route, guided only on the first outward trip and with feedback every time an error was made. Experiment 1 used 3-D virtual environments (VEs) with a desktop monitor display, and participants were provided with no supplementary landmarks, only global landmarks, only local landmarks, or both global and local landmarks. Local landmarks significantly reduced the number of errors that participants made, but global landmarks did not. Experiment 2 used a head-mounted display; here, participants who physically walked through the VE (translational and rotational body-based information) made 36% fewer errors than did participants who traveled by physically turning but changing position using a joystick. Overall, the experiments showed that participants were less sure of where to turn than which way, and journey direction interacted with sensory information to affect the number and types of errors participants made.
Subject(s)
Kinesthesis , Locomotion , Mental Recall , Orientation , Pattern Recognition, Visual , Proprioception , Space Perception , User-Computer Interface , Adult , Cues , Female , Humans , Male , Young AdultABSTRACT
Recent studies have suggested that people's intent and ability to act also can influence their perception of their bodies' peripersonal space. Vice versa one could assume that the inability to reach toward and grasp an object might have an impact on the subject's perception of reaching distance. Here we tested this prediction by investigating body size and action capability perception of neurological patients suffering from arm paresis after stroke, comparing 32 right-brain-damaged patients (13 with left-sided arm paresis without additional spatial neglect, 10 with left-sided arm paresis and additional spatial neglect, 9 patients had neither arm paresis nor neglect) and 27 healthy controls. Nineteen of the group of right hemisphere stroke patients could be re-examined about five months after initial injury. Arm length was estimated in three different methodological approaches: explicit visual, explicit tactile/proprioceptive, and implicit reaching. Results fulfilled the working hypothesis. Patients with an arm paresis indeed perceived their bodies differently. We found a transient overestimation of the length of the contralesional, paretic arm after stroke. Body size and action capability perception for the extremities thus indeed seem to be tightly linked in humans.
Subject(s)
Paresis/psychology , Size Perception , Stroke/psychology , Aged , Arm/physiology , Body Size , Case-Control Studies , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Paresis/complications , Proprioception , Stroke/complications , Stroke/pathologyABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Body image has a significant impact on the outcome of obesity surgery. This study aims to perform a semantic evaluation of body shapes in obesity surgery patients and a group of controls. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty-four obesity surgery (OS) subjects, stable after weight loss (average 48.03 ± 18.60 kg), and 35 overweight/obese controls (MC), were enrolled in this study. Body dissatisfaction, self-esteem, and body perception were evaluated with self-reported tests, and semantic evaluation of body shapes was performed with three specific tasks constructed with realistic human body stimuli. RESULTS: The OS showed a more positive body image compared to HC (p < 0.001), higher levels of depression (p < 0.019), and lower self-esteem (p < 0.000). OS patients and HC showed no difference in weight bias, but OS used a higher BMI than HC in the visualization of positive adjectives (p = 0.011). Both groups showed a mental underestimation of their body shapes. CONCLUSION: OS patients are more psychologically burdened and have more difficulties in judging their bodies than overweight/obese peers. Their mental body representations seem not to be linked to their own BMI. Our findings provide helpful insight for the design of specific interventions in body image in obese and overweight people, as well as in OS.
Subject(s)
Body Image , Obesity, Morbid , Body Mass Index , Body Weight , Humans , Obesity/surgery , Obesity, Morbid/surgery , Overweight , Self Concept , SemanticsABSTRACT
In order to optimally characterize full-body self-motion perception during passive translations, changes in perceived location, velocity, and acceleration must be quantified in real time and with high spatial resolution. Past methods have failed to effectively measure these critical variables. Here, we introduce continuous pointing as a novel method with several advantages over previous methods. Participants point continuously to the mentally updated location of a previously viewed target during passive, full-body movement. High-precision motion-capture data of arm angle provide a measure of a participant's perceived location and, in turn, perceived velocity at every moment during a motion trajectory. In two experiments, linear movements were presented in the absence of vision by passively translating participants with a robotic wheelchair or an anthropomorphic robotic arm (MPI Motion Simulator). The movement profiles included constant-velocity trajectories, two successive movement intervals separated by a brief pause, and reversed-motion trajectories. Results indicate a steady decay in perceived velocity during constant-velocity travel and an attenuated response to mid-trial accelerations.
Subject(s)
Kinesthesis/physiology , Motion Perception/physiology , Movement , Psychomotor Performance , Adult , Analysis of Variance , Arm , Biomechanical Phenomena , Computer Simulation , Female , Humans , Male , Orientation , Vision, Ocular , Young AdultABSTRACT
Viewing faces in motion or attached to a body instead of isolated static faces improves their subsequent recognition. Here we enhanced the ecological validity of face encoding by having observers physically moving in a virtual room populated by life-size avatars. We compared the recognition performance of this active group to two control groups. The first control group watched a passive reenactment of the visual experience of the active group. The second control group saw static screenshots of the avatars. All groups performed the same old/new recognition task after learning. Half of the learned faces were shown at test in an orientation close to that experienced during learning while the others were viewed from a new viewing angle. All observers found novel views more difficult to recognize than familiar ones. Overall, the active group performed better than both other groups. Furthermore, the group learning faces from static images was the only one to be at chance level in the novel-view condition. These findings suggest that active exploration combined with a dynamic experience of the faces to learn allow for more robust face recognition and point out the value of such techniques for integrating facial visual information and enhancing recognition from novel viewpoints.
Subject(s)
Facial Recognition/physiology , Recognition, Psychology/physiology , Virtual Reality , Adolescent , Adult , Discrimination Learning/physiology , Female , Humans , Male , Motion Perception , Photic Stimulation/methods , Young AdultABSTRACT
In the last decades, cognitive models of multisensory integration in human beings have been developed and applied to model human body experience. Recent research indicates that Bayesian and connectionist models might push developments in various branches of robotics: assistive robotic devices might adapt to their human users aiming at increased device embodiment, e.g., in prosthetics, and humanoid robots could be endowed with human-like capabilities regarding their surrounding space, e.g., by keeping safe or socially appropriate distances to other agents. In this perspective paper, we review cognitive models that aim to approximate the process of human sensorimotor behavior generation, discuss their challenges and potentials in robotics, and give an overview of existing approaches. While model accuracy is still subject to improvement, human-inspired cognitive models support the understanding of how the modulating factors of human body experience are blended. Implementing the resulting insights in adaptive and learning control algorithms could help to taylor assistive devices to their user's individual body experience. Humanoid robots who develop their own body schema could consider this body knowledge in control and learn to optimize their physical interaction with humans and their environment. Cognitive body experience models should be improved in accuracy and online capabilities to achieve these ambitious goals, which would foster human-centered directions in various fields of robotics.
ABSTRACT
It has been suggested that the vestibular system not only plays a role for our sense of balance and postural control but also might modulate higher-order body representations, such as the perceived shape and size of our body. Recent findings using virtual reality (VR) to realistically manipulate the length of whole extremities of first person biometric avatars under vestibular stimulation did not support this assumption. It has been discussed that these negative findings were due to the availability of visual feedback on the subjects' virtual arms and legs. The present study tested this hypothesis by excluding the latter information. A newly recruited group of healthy subjects had to adjust the position of blocks in 3D space of a VR scenario such that they had the feeling that they could just touch them with their left/right hand/heel. Caloric vestibular stimulation did not alter perceived size of own extremities. Findings suggest that vestibular signals do not serve to scale the internal representation of (large parts of) our body's metric properties. This is in obvious contrast to the egocentric representation of our body midline which allows us to perceive and adjust the position of our body with respect to the surroundings. These two qualia appear to belong to different systems of body representation in humans.
Subject(s)
Body Image , Caloric Tests/methods , Photic Stimulation/methods , Vestibule, Labyrinth/physiology , Adolescent , Adult , Body Size , Extremities , Female , Healthy Volunteers , Humans , Male , Virtual Reality , Young AdultABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Vestibular input is projected to "multisensory (vestibular) cortex" where it converges with input from other sensory modalities. It has been assumed that this multisensory integration enables a continuous perception of state and presence of one's own body. The present study thus asked whether or not vestibular stimulation may impact this perception. METHODS: We used an immersive virtual reality setup to realistically manipulate the length of extremities of first person biometric avatars. Twenty-two healthy participants had to adjust arms and legs to their correct length from various start lengths before, during, and after vestibular stimulation. RESULTS: Neither unilateral caloric nor galvanic vestibular stimulation had a modulating effect on the perceived size of own extremities. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that vestibular stimulation does not directly influence the explicit somatosensory representation of our body. It is possible that in non-brain-damaged, healthy subjects, changes in whole body size perception are principally not mediated by vestibular information. Alternatively, visual feedback and/or memory may dominate multisensory integration and thereby override possibly existing modulations of body perception by vestibular stimulation. The present observations suggest that multisensory integration and not the processing of a single sensory input is the crucial mechanism in generating our body representation in relation to the external world.
Subject(s)
Body Image/psychology , Vestibule, Labyrinth/physiology , Visual Perception/physiology , Adolescent , Adult , Arm/anatomy & histology , Biometry , Female , Humans , Leg/anatomy & histology , Male , Phantoms, Imaging , Photic Stimulation , Somatosensory Cortex/physiology , Virtual Reality , Young AdultABSTRACT
Creating metrically accurate avatars is important for many applications such as virtual clothing try-on, ergonomics, medicine, immersive social media, telepresence, and gaming. Creating avatars that precisely represent a particular individual is challenging however, due to the need for expensive 3D scanners, privacy issues with photographs or videos, and difficulty in making accurate tailoring measurements. We overcome these challenges by creating "The Virtual Caliper", which uses VR game controllers to make simple measurements. First, we establish what body measurements users can reliably make on their own body. We find several distance measurements to be good candidates and then verify that these are linearly related to 3D body shape as represented by the SMPL body model. The Virtual Caliper enables novice users to accurately measure themselves and create an avatar with their own body shape. We evaluate the metric accuracy relative to ground truth 3D body scan data, compare the method quantitatively to other avatar creation tools, and perform extensive perceptual studies. We also provide a software application to the community that enables novices to rapidly create avatars in fewer than five minutes. Not only is our approach more rapid than existing methods, it exports a metrically accurate 3D avatar model that is rigged and skinned.
Subject(s)
Imaging, Three-Dimensional/methods , Virtual Reality , Anthropometry/methods , Body Image , Body Size , Computer Graphics , Computer Systems , Female , Humans , Male , Self Concept , Software , User-Computer InterfaceABSTRACT
It is currently not fully understood where people precisely locate themselves in their bodies, particularly in virtual reality. To investigate this, we asked participants to point directly at themselves and to several of their body parts with a virtual pointer, in two virtual reality (VR) setups, a VR headset and a large-screen immersive display (LSID). There was a difference in distance error in pointing to body parts depending on VR setup. Participants pointed relatively accurately to many of their body parts (i.e., eyes, nose, chin, shoulders, and waist). However, in both VR setups when pointing to the feet and the knees they pointed too low, and for the top of the head too high (to larger extents in the VR headset). Taking these distortions into account, the locations found for pointing to self were considered in terms of perceived bodies, based on where the participants had pointed to their body parts in the two VR setups. Pointing to self in terms of the perceived body was mostly to the face, the upper followed by the lower, as well as some to the torso regions. There was no significant overall effect of VR condition for pointing to self in terms of the perceived body (but there was a significant effect of VR if only the physical body (as measured) was considered). In a paper-and-pencil task outside of VR, performed by pointing on a picture of a simple body outline (body template task), participants pointed most to the upper torso. Possible explanations for the differences between pointing to self in the VR setups and the body template task are discussed. The main finding of this study is that the VR setup influences where people point to their body parts, but not to themselves, when perceived and not physical body parts are considered.
ABSTRACT
The conscious representation of our physical appearance is important for many aspects of everyday life. Here, we asked whether different visual experiences of our bodies influence body width estimates. In Experiment 1, width estimates of three body parts (foot, hips, and shoulders) without any visual access were compared to estimates with visual feedback available in a mirror or from a first-person perspective. In the no visual access and mirror condition, participants additionally estimated their head width. There was no influence of viewing condition on body part width estimates. Consistent with previous research, all body part widths were overestimated with greater overestimation of hip and head width. In Experiment 2, participants estimated the size of unfamiliar noncorporeal objects to test whether this overestimation was partially due to the metric body size estimation method or our experimental conditions. Object width was overestimated with visual feedback in a mirror available as compared to when directly looking at the object, but only for objects placed at shoulder and head height. We conclude that at least some of the overestimation of body part width seems to be body specific and occurs regardless of the visual information provided about the own body.