Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

The ability to localize nociceptive stimuli on the body surface is essential for an organism to respond appropriately to potential physical threats. This ability not only requires a representation of the space of the observer׳s body, but also of the external space with respect to their body. Therefore, localizing nociceptive stimuli requires coordinating multiple senses into an integrated frame of reference. The peripersonal frame of reference allows for the coding of the position of somatosensory stimuli on the body surface and the position of stimuli occurring close to the body (e.g., visual stimuli). Intensively studied for touch, this topic has been largely ignored when it comes to nociception. Here, we investigated, using a temporal order judgment task, whether the spatial perception of nociceptive stimuli is coordinated with that of proximal visual stimuli into an integrated representation of peripersonal space. Participants judged which of two nociceptive stimuli, one presented to either hand, had been presented first. Each pair of nociceptive stimuli was preceded by lateralized visual cues presented either unilaterally or bilaterally, and either close to, or far from, the participant׳s body. The perception of nociceptive stimuli was biased in favor of the stimulus delivered on the hand adjacent to the unilateral visual cue, especially when the cue was presented near the participant׳s hand. These results therefore suggest that a peripersonal frame of reference is used to map the position of nociceptive stimuli in multisensory space. We propose that peripersonal space constitutes a kind of margin of safety around the body to alert an organism to possible threats.

Original publication

DOI

10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.01.016

Type

Journal article

Journal

Neuropsychologia

Publication Date

04/2014

Volume

56

Pages

219 - 228

Keywords

Attention, Crossmodal integration, Nociception, Peripersonal space, Temporal order judgment, Analysis of Variance, Cues, Female, Functional Laterality, Hand, Humans, Judgment, Male, Nociception, Physical Stimulation, Psychophysics, Reaction Time, Space Perception, Young Adult