I and me: self-portraiture in brain damage

Abstract

Human bodily experience is characterized by the immediate feeling that our body is localized at a certain position in space and that the self is localized within these body borders (embodiment). Recent research from cognitive neuroscience and neurology suggests that embodiment is of major importance for neuroscientific models of self and self-consciousness. This is suggested by illusory own body perceptions (such as autoscopic hallucinations, heautoscopy, and out-of-body experiences) during which the self may be experienced as being localized outside one's body borders. I have previously argued that self-portraiture may rely on similar brain mechanisms and have proposed a classification of self-portraiture based on neurological classifications of illusory own body perceptions. Here I extend this model focussing on three types of self-portraits: visual self-portraits, disembodied self-portraits, and corporeal self-portraits. This is followed by a discussion of visuospatial, linguistic, and mnestic mechanisms in self-portraiture that are examined in selected painters.