Exprience-based approach to bodily self using the "Squeeze machine"

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K18346
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 90030:Cognitive science-related
• Research Institution: Waseda University
• Principal Investigator: Minoura Mai 早稲田大学, 理工学術院, 助手 (10801269)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 身体的自己認識 / 自己と他者 / 認知実験 / クロスモーダル / 意思決定

Outline of Final Research Achievements

What is "my own body"? How do "self" and "others/external world" interact each other? As facing such problems which would be essential for our cognitive activity, I proposed an approach with "Squeeze machine".
"Squeeze machine" is a device to get relax as pressing user's whole body by one's self, and has been used for occupational therapy. Meanwhile, I focus on the fact that the inventor of this machine overcame her problem due to autism and said "the machine taught what "to empathy for others" is". Thus, this machine is remarkable not just for its relaxing effect, but for its potential to be a tool to observe the interaction between our body and mind. With this motivation, I introduce this machine to various cognitive experiments.
The main finding is that; "Squeeze machine" could degrade our representative boundary of "Peri-personal space". That was demonstrated using pre-established experimental paradigm and published as two peer-reviewed papers.

Free Research Field

認知科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

長く議論されてきた身体と心の問題に新しい知見を加えた。特に、身体へのシンプルな物理的作用がその本人の表象的な自己認識や意思決定に影響をきたすこと、その際に自己の中の他者性への明示化がポイントとなることが示唆された点が新しいと思われる。
作業療法の場で一部の人たちに使われてきた機具を認知科学の分野に持ち込み、定型者を対象にした実験から傾向を捉えることで、両方をまたぐ議論を可能にした。