Mirror-touch synaesthesia: the role of shared ... - UCL Discovery

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Chapter 2
Figure 2.6 The influence of perspective on synaesthetic experience. (a) Observing
touch to another person from one’s own perspective induces touch on an anatomically
corresponding hand for both the anatomical and specular subtypes (i.e. observing
touch to another’s left hand evokes synaesthesia on the synaesthete’s left hand). (b)
For anatomical mirror-touch synaesthetes, synaesthetic touch is still evoked on the
anatomically corresponding hand when observing touch to another person’s hand
from another’s perspective (i.e. observing touch to another’s left hand evokes
synaesthesia on the synaesthete’s left hand). (c) For specular mirror-touch
synaesthetes, this not the case. When observing touch to another person’s hand from
another’s perspective, synaesthesia is evoked on the mirrored right hand (i.e.
observing touch to another’s left hand evokes synaesthesia on the synaesthete’s right
hand). See Banissy and Ward (2007). Blue dots correspond to the location of the
synaesthetic sensation evoked.
The perspective of the seen body part provides one way of discriminating
between self and other. The importance of discriminations between first-person and
third-person perspectives (Figure 2.6) also varies between synaesthetic subtypes when
observing touch to body parts (excluding the face) and this may require more
computations for specular compared to anatomical synaesthetes. For specular