Where do you end and the external world begin? This might seem to be a straightforward, binary question: your skin is the boundary, with the self on one side and the rest of the world on the other. Peripersonal space shows that the division is not that simple. The boundary is blurrier than you might have thought. Our ability to monitor the space near the body appears to be deeply ingrained. Our evolutionary history has equipped our brains with a special mechanism to track multisensory stimuli that can potentially interact with our physical body in its immediate surroundings and prime appropria ... More

Where do you end and the external world begin? This might seem to be a straightforward, binary question: your skin is the boundary, with the self on one side and the rest of the world on the other. Peripersonal space shows that the division is not that simple. The boundary is blurrier than you might have thought. Our ability to monitor the space near the body appears to be deeply ingrained. Our evolutionary history has equipped our brains with a special mechanism to track multisensory stimuli that can potentially interact with our physical body in its immediate surroundings and prime appropriate actions. The processing of the immediate space around one’s body thus displays highly specific multisensory and motor features, distinct from those that characterize the processing of regions of space that are further away. The computational specificities here lead one to wonder whether classic theories of perception apply to the special case of peripersonal space. We think that there is a need to reassess the relationship between perception, action, emotion, and self-awareness in the highly special context of the immediate surroundings of our body. For the first time, leading experts on peripersonal space in cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, and ethology gathered in this volume describe the vast number of fascinating discoveries about this special way of representing space. For the first time too, these empirical results and the questions they open are brought into dialogue with philosophy.