This article addresses the notion of touch and its constitutive role in the participatory sense-making process (de Jaegher and Paolo 2007) of play and dance improvisation. It is argued that touch is always relational, as it continuously changes the contours of self, other(ness), and world(ing). It is therefore surprising that touch traditionally…

This paper explores an inhuman reading of 'hands' with/in visual images of a Finnish literacy lesson. Inspired by Karen Barad's agential realism and the ontological turn, we disrupt a metaphysics of presence, the temporality of progress and binary logic, to reconfigure the child in literacy practices as a sympoietic phenomenon, always already…

Children with developmental disorders often have poor motor performance. This study aimed to address the association between tactile localization ability, an indicator of body image, and motor function in children with motor deficits. Eighteen children with motor deficits participated, and their upper and lower limbs were assessed. To assess the…

In the rubber hand illusion, perceived hand ownership can be transferred to a rubber hand after synchronous visual and tactile stimulation. Perceived body ownership and self-other relation are foundational for development of self-awareness, imitation, and empathy, which are all affected in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We examined the rubber…

It is well documented that in the first year after birth, infants are able to identify self-performed actions. This ability has been regarded as the basis of conscious self-perception. However, it is not yet known whether infants are also sensitive to aspects of the self when they cannot control the sensory feedback by means of self-performed…

Understanding other people's feelings in social interactions depends on the ability to map onto our body the sensory experiences we observed on other people's bodies. It has been shown that the perception of tactile stimuli on the face is improved when concurrently viewing a face being touched. This Visual Remapping of Touch (VRT) is enhanced the…

The perceived distance between touches on a single skin surface is larger on regions of high tactile sensitivity than those with lower acuity, an effect known as "Weber's illusion". This illusion suggests that tactile size perception involves a representation of the perceived size of body parts preserving characteristics of the somatosensory…

Social interactions within virtual communities are often described solely as being online experiences. Such descriptions are limited, for they fail to reference life external to the screen. The terms "virtual" and "real" have a negative connotation for many people and can even be interpreted to mean that something is "false" or "inauthentic."…

The overarching goal of the present study was to trace the development of mirror self-recognition (MSR), as an index of toddlers' sense of themselves and others as autonomous intentional agents, in different sociocultural environments. A total of 276 toddlers participated in the present study. Toddlers were either 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, or 21 months…

Interpersonal touch has been little studied empirically as an indicator of parent- and peer-child intimacy. Undergraduate students (n = 390) were studied using a questionnaire survey regarding the frequencies of interpersonal touch by father, mother, same-sex peers, and opposite-sex peers during preschool ages, grades 1-3, grades 4-6, and grades…

Five first-hand Web page accounts of unusual sensory perceptual experiences written by persons with high-functioning autism were selected for qualitative analysis. Four core categories emerged: turbulent sensory perceptual experiences; coping mechanisms; enjoyable sensory perceptual experiences; and awareness of being different, suggesting they…

A blind adult discusses the need to allow blind children to experience the world through touch. Allowing and encouraging touching can promote self-acceptance as well as learning. (CL)

This document is an annual report for the academic year 1966-67 dealing with research of the Merrill-Palmer Institute conducted in conjunction with the Head Start Evaluation and Research Center of Michigan State University. Section one of the report consists of five research studies on learning and cognition: (1) Modification of Classificatory…

In the present study we investigated the relationship between suicidal behavior and aspects of bodily perception and parental care. Measures of bodily perception included measures of tactile sensitivity, body attitudes, and body experiences. Measures of parental care included parental bonding, negative and positive touch, and early maltreatment.…