Attention and body awareness: The role of inhibition and the management of cognitive resources in the perception of spontaneous sensations.

Abstract

When the body is attended to and viewed, it appears that only a subset of bodily sensations enters awareness. Some of these sensations can be felt on the skin even though no stimulation triggers their perception: They are commonly referred to as spontaneous sensations (SPS). It is hypothesized that inhibition and the management of cognitive resources are involved in their perception through phenomena of amplification and suppression. However, the involvement of these processes in body awareness remains poorly understood. We investigated the relationship between attentional abilities and the perception of SPS in order to provide the further information regarding this matter. A dual-task paradigm involving visual search and auditory detection was used to assess attentional abilities prior to the investigation of SPS perceived when attending to the glabrous and visible surface of the hand. We found that difficulties in inhibiting distractors were associated with a lower perception of SPS, while difficulties in managing cognitive resources were associated with an increase in the frequency of SPS and a decrease in the perception of paresis-like SPS. This suggests that these attentional processes are involved separately in body awareness and allows us to discuss how attention contributes to the conscious awareness of the body.