Synonyms
Somatognosis
Definition
General term for the personal awareness of one’s body, including the location and orientation of its various parts and their relative motion in space and time, as well as its functional integrity.
Current Knowledge
Although usually taken for granted, to effectively carry out normal motor activities one needs to appreciate both the static and kinetic state of the body as a whole as well as its individual parts. This information is derived from a number of sensory feedback loops, including signals from receptors in the muscles, tendons, ligaments and the skin (proprioceptive, kinesthetic, and tactile information), the inner ear or vestibular sense (orientation, direction, and speed of movement of the head), and vision. Perhaps as a result of collective experiences with such discrete sensory input, it has been suggested that individuals eventually develop what might be considered a superordinate sense of one’s own body, independent of its movement in space...
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References and Readings
Adair, J. C., Schwartz, R. L., & Barrett, A. (2003). Anosognosia. In K. M. Heilman & E. Valenstein (Eds.), Clinical neuropsychology (4th ed., pp. 185–214). New York: Oxford University Press.
Denburg, N. L., & Tranel, D. (2003). Acalculia and disturbances of body schema. In K. M. Heilman & E. Valenstein (Eds.), Clinical neuropsychology (4th ed., pp. 161–184). New York: Oxford University Press.
Goldenberg, G. (2003). Disorders of body perception and representation. In T. E. Feinberg & M. J. Farah (Eds.), Behavioral neurology and neuropsychology (2nd ed., pp. 285–294). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Prigatano, G. P., & Schacter, D. L. (Eds.). (1991). Awareness of deficit after brain injury: Clinical and theoretical issues. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Mendoza, J.E. (2018). Body Schema. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_713
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_713
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