Study On The Development Of Bodily Self-consciousness In Preschool Children

Bodily self-consciousness refers to the ability of individuals to recognize their own bodies and the relationships of their bodies with external world,which is the core basis of self-consciousness.During the process of interaction between an individual and the external environment,the brain receives sensory information from various sensory receptors and integrates them together,which is called multisensory information integration and combined with the internal body representation to form bodily selfconsciousness.Up to date,there have been a variety of studies on self-consciousness.However,the development trajectory of bodies self-consciousness in children remains largely unknown.The present study aimed to explore the development routine of bodily self-consciousness in preschool children at different periods of ages.We used the classic rubber hand illusion(RHI)behavioral paradigm to study the development trajectory of children’s visual-tactic-proprioceptive integration ability by applying tactile stimuli to induce illusion.Meanwhile,a new experimental paradigm(visual-proprioceptive pointing task)was introduced to study the development trajectory of children’s visualproprioceptive integration ability and reference-frame conversion ability.The results show that among the multisensory information integration abilities of preschool children,the visual-proprioceptive integration ability matures at 3.5-4.5 years old,the visual-tactile-proprioceptive integration ability matures at 4.5-5.5 years old,and the ability of reference-frame conversion and localization of body parts through proprioception matures at around 6 years old.The present study provides first-hand experimental data for understanding the development of bodily self-consciousness in preschool children.