| Body schema is indispensable for sensorimotor control and learning, but it remains unclear whether it is associated with cognitive functions. Data from patients with spatial neglect support this view; yet observations in healthy participants are inconsistent. Here I conducted two sets of experiments examining influences of trunk position: the first probed attention and spatial working memory using a change detection task and a two-back task; the second used different versions of the Posner paradigm to examine whether head-on-trunk position governs disengagement of attention. In none of the experiments did I observe that trunk turns altered performance in the left versus right visual field in an ipsiversive fashion as reported in neglect. Nevertheless, I found that trunk-right position improved performance at eccentric locations of the visual field. The data are inconsistent with previous findings of head-on-trunk effects in normal participants. Further studies are required to clarify these discrepancies. |
