When we see the motion of a ball looming toward us, is there a sense in which we might be said to be visually aware of the impending collision? One may be immediately tempted to reply negatively if one assumes that we can visually experience only what is visible and what is happening now. Yet, I shall propose here that we can be visually aware of the close future qua the future. To do so, I will first argue that when one sees an object looming, one anticipatorily represents the endpoint of the motion and that this anticipatory representation is perceptual. I will then propose that perceptual anticipation is a constitutive part of visual experiences of looming objects by enabling a temporal form of amodal completion of the on-going motion. I will finally assess the temporal implications of the intrinsic anticipatory component of visual experiences of looming objects and propose that visual experiences can be oriented toward the future.

Many agree that the more we feel that we can handle a given situation, the less afraid we are. But why? Is the situation no longer dangerous or is fear a response to more than danger? Here I analyze situations in which one reacts in cold blood to danger and argue that the formal object of fear is not the dangerous, but the unsafe. The unsafe indicates not only how the world is, but also how it can be handled. Safety, and its negative counterpart, are characterized by their duality, both evaluative (is the snake dangerous?) and agentive (is it under control?).

In this paper, we show that there is a distinctive mode of spatial awareness in blind individuals, which we call sense of volume, that is not to be confused with echolocation based on self-generated sounds. It is based on the analysis of variations in the ambient sound field and it provides locational information about objects in one’s surroundings. We propose that the sense of volume offers a primitive contact with the outside world. It does not give access to perceptual objects as such, but it should rather be understood as a rudimentary sense of presence that expresses that there is something out there at a certain distance and in a certain direction. We conclude by highlighting its tactile quality. More specifically, we argue that the sense of volume consists in a form of tactile anticipation: when one experiences something as being out there, one tactually expects that one could come in contact with it.

This study aims to provide a phenomenological description of the sense of volume in sighted people. Especially developed by non-sighted people, the sense of volume is an ability to perceive solids and voids by analysing sound reflection. Our recent works have brought it closer to the human echolocation's ability, but also to a form of spatial hearing based on the analysis of variations in the ambient sound field. In many studies, blindfolded participants were able to detect a surface positioned in front of them. However, there are no studies reporting on the experience of the sense of volume in sighted people under conditions of ecological perception. Consequently, we carried out commented walks, combined with a micro-phenomenological interview method in an urban environment. By cross-referencing participants' perceptions (wall detection at one metre, typologies' discrimination of) with feelings they share (acoustic feelings combined with synesthetic tactile feelings), we demonstrated the ability of sighted people to rapidly unveil a functional sense of volume. Several researchers have hypothesized that sighted people may use a form of automated passive echolocation. In the light of our results, we wonder whether the sense of volume might be a non-conscious factor in an urban atmosphere.

Pain is a complex bodily sensation, not easily captured. We need to explain its duality, both sensory and affective, its motivational force, and the many forms it can take. Current theories in analytic philosophy seek to go beyond a vague subjective experience to determine whether pain is closer to sensory experiences, describing bodily disturbances, or to desires, prescribing how to react to the disruption. Here I show that it is by turning to theories of emotion that we can hope to move forward, and in particular to attitudinal theories, which emphasize the importance in our affective experiences of the way we apprehend the world and our body.

A vast range of neurophysiological, neuropsychological and behavioural results in monkeys and humans have shown that the immediate surroundings of the body, also known as peripersonal space (PPS), are processed in a unique way. Three roles have been ascribed to PPS mechanisms: to react to threats, to avoid obstacles and to act on objects. However, in many circumstances, one does not wait for objects or agents to enter PPS to plan these behaviours. Typically, one has more chances to survive if one starts running away from the lion when one sees it in the distance than if it is a few steps away. PPS makes sense in shortsighted creatures but we are not such creatures. The crucial question is thus twofold: (i) why are these adaptive processes triggered only at the last second or even milliseconds? And (ii) what is their exact contribution, especially for defensive and navigational behaviours? Here, we propose that PPS mechanisms correspond to a plan B, useful in unpredictable situations or when other anticipatory mechanisms have failed. Furthermore, we argue that there are energetic, cognitive and behavioural costs to PPS mechanisms, which explain why this plan B is triggered only at the last second. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Minds in movement: embodied cognition in the age of artificial intelligence’.

Bodily awareness is informed by both sensory data and prior knowledge. Although misleading sensory signals have been repeatedly shown to affect bodily awareness, only scant attention has been given to the influence of cognitive variables. Hypnotic suggestion has recently been shown to impact visuospatial and sensorimotor representations of body-part size although the mechanisms subserving this effect are yet to be identified. Mental imagery might play a causal or facilitative role in this effect, as it has been shown to influence body awareness in previous studies. Nonetheless, current views ascribe only an epiphenomenal role to imagery in the implementation of hypnotic suggestions. This study compared the effects of hypnotic suggestion and imagery instruction for influencing the visuospatial and sensorimotor aspects of body-size representation. Both experimental manipulations produced significant increases (elongation) in both representations compared to baseline, although the effects were larger in the hypnotic suggestion condition. The effects of both manipulations were highly correlated across participants, suggesting overlapping mechanisms. Self-reports suggested that the use of voluntary imagery did not significantly contribute to the efficacy of either manipulation. Rather, top-down effects on body representations seem to be partly driven by response expectancies, spontaneous imagery, and hypnotic suggestibility in both conditions. These results are in line with current theories of suggestion and raise fundamental questions regarding the mechanisms driving the influence of cognition on body representations.

Recent evidence in cognitive neuroscience indicates that the visual system is influenced by the outcome of an early appraisal mechanism that automatically evaluates what is seen as being harmful or beneficial for the organism. This indicates that there could be valence in perception. But what could it mean for one to see something positively or negatively? Although most theories of emotions accept that valence involves being related to values, the nature of this relation remains highly debated. Some explain valence in terms of evaluative content, others in terms of evaluative attitude. Here I shall argue that an account of affective perception in terms of attitude has more chance of succeeding. To do so, I will first highlight the difficulties that a content-based approach faces, considering the many forms that it might take. I will conclude that seeing the world positively or negatively involves more than a positive or negative content; it involves a distinctive attitude, but which one? Should it be conceived of in imperative or evaluative terms? And what makes this attitude distinct from a proper emotion?

Most accounts of bodily self-awareness focus on its sensory and agentive dimensions, tracking the origins of our special relationship with our own body in the way we gain information about it and in the way we act with it. However, they often neglect a fundamental dimension of our subjective bodily life, namely, its affective dimension. This Element will discuss bodily self-awareness through the filter of its affective significance. It is organized around four core themes: (i) the relationship between bodily awareness and action in instrumental and protective contexts, (ii) the motivational role of pain and interoception, (iii) the sense of bodily ownership and its relation to the value of the body for survival, and (iv) bodily anchoring in peripersonal and egocentric awareness. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

It is often claimed that tools are embodied by their user, but whether the brain actually repurposes its body-based computations to perform similar tasks with tools is not known. A fundamental computation for localizing touch on the body is trilateration. Here, the location of touch on a limb is computed by integrating estimates of the distance between sensory input and its boundaries (e.g., elbow and wrist of the forearm). As evidence of this computational mechanism, tactile localization on a limb is most precise near its boundaries and lowest in the middle. Here, we show that the brain repurposes trilateration to localize touch on a tool, despite large differences in initial sensory input compared with touch on the body. In a large sample of participants, we found that localizing touch on a tool produced the signature of trilateration, with highest precision close to the base and tip of the tool. A computational model of trilateration provided a good fit to the observed localization behavior. To further demonstrate the computational plausibility of repurposing trilateration, we implemented it in a three-layer neural network that was based on principles of probabilistic population coding. This network determined hit location in tool-centered coordinates by using a tool’s unique pattern of vibrations when contacting an object. Simulations demonstrated the expected signature of trilateration, in line with the behavioral patterns. Our results have important implications for how trilateration may be implemented by somatosensory neural populations. We conclude that trilateration is likely a fundamental spatial computation that unifies limbs and tools.

Abstract Typically, just a few seconds before being hit, one experiences a relatively primitive sense of impending collision, something like ‘This is going to crash into me!’. This chapter proposes to explain the sense of impending collision in terms of amodal completion. Thanks to it, one can be visually aware of more than what one can actually see and this can be true not only for objects, but also for dynamic events. But what mechanisms are involved in amodal completion? Do they qualify as perceptual or should they rather be conceived as being imaginative? This chapter argues that there is a sense in which one can be said to have a perceptual sense of the future.

There is a large amount of evidence of placebo and nocebo effects showing that one’s expectation of a forthcoming pain can influence the subsequent experience of pain. Here I shall not discuss the implications of these findings for the nature of pain, but focus instead on the nature of pain anticipation itself. This notion indeed remains poorly analysed and it is unclear what type of anticipatory state it involves. I shall argue that there is more to pain anticipation than a mere combination of anticipatory beliefs and fears. When the impending damage is imminent, pain anticipation involves a distinctive sui generis mental state, which I call nociceptive prediction. One then anticipates the forthcoming event under the pain mode. After analysing its points of similarities and differences with pain, I shall argue that nociceptive prediction is best understood in imperative defensive terms.

Bodily awareness arises from somatosensory, vestibular, and visual inputs but cannot be reduced to these incoming sensory signals. Cognitive factors are known to also impact bodily awareness, though their specific influence is poorly understood. Here we systematically compared the effects of sensory (bottom-up) and cognitive (top-down) manipulations on the estimated size of body parts. Toward this end, in a repeated-measures design, we sought to induce the illusion that the right index finger was elongating by vibrating the biceps tendon of the left arm whilst participants grasped the tip of their right index finger (Lackner illusion; bottom-up) and separately by hypnotic suggestion (top-down), with a sham version of the Lackner illusion as an active control condition. The effects of these manipulations were assessed with perceptual and motor tasks to capture different components of the representation of body size. We found that hypnotic suggestion significantly induced the illusion in both tasks relative to the sham condition. The magnitudes of these effects were stronger than those in the Lackner illusion condition, which only produced a significantly stronger illusion than the sham condition in the perceptual task. We further observed that illusion magnitude significantly correlated across tasks and conditions, suggesting partly shared mechanisms. These results are in line with theories of separate but interacting representational processes for perception and action and highlight the influence of cognitive factors on low-level body representations.

What makes our body unique? The most intuitive answer is that it bears a special relation to the self, and to self-awareness. Yet, although introspectively familiar, it is hard to exactly pinpoint the nature of this specific relationship. Thanks to their privileged relation to our body, bodily experiences seem to afford awareness of our body as being our own, what has been called the sense of bodily ownership. The aim of this chapter is to offer a very brief outline of some of the main questions and puzzles that await those interested in bodily ownership. How to account for the first-personal character of the sense of ownership? Does one actually feel one’s body as one’s own or does one only entertain the thought that it is one’s own body? Is it one and the same thing to experience a body part or the whole body as one’s own? What is the relationship between the sense of ownership and the sense of disownership? Is the sense of ownership a matter of degrees? Is the sense of ownership cognitively penetrable? Can one feel sensations in a limb that does not appear to be one’s own? What is the role of agency for ownership? And which form of agency, exploratory or protective? Does one feel one’s body as one’s own because one is aware of its unique significance for survival or is one aware of its unique significance because one feels it as one’s own?