Perceptual manifestations of experimentally enhanced body boundary experience.

Results of the present study suggest that by articulating an individual's experience of the surface of his body one can differentially sensitize him to the surface qualities of external, nonbody objects. These results are consistent both with sensory-tonic field theoretical research demonstrating the interactive nature of body and nonbody spatial coordinate systems, and with body image research relating patterns of body activation or attention to the perception of inkblot stimuli. Past body-image research has been primarily correlative in nature and has tended to view patterns of body activation as a response to one's "body image." By experimentally manipulating subjects* body experience—treating it as the independent variable—the present study raises questions as to the nature of the underlying causal relationship between body experience and body image, and the relative weight to be given historical vs contemporary determinants of the body image.