Sensorimotor and social aspects of peripersonal space

Abstract

About three decades ago, multisensory coding of the space surrounding the body was first described (Rizzolatti et al., 1981). Neurophysiological primate studies showed that information from different sensory modalities converge at single cell level within a set of interconnected multisensory fronto-parietal areas. Since then, this topic has gained increasing interest in the field of neurophysiology, neuropsychology, cognitive science and neuroimaging, with the number of publications per year doubling during the last decade. Accumulating evidence suggests that multisensory coding of peripersonal space is important for a wide range of functions including bodily perception, the sensory guidance of goal-directed and defensive movements, and localization of the limbs in space. Furthermore, recent studies additionally provide evidence for the idea that peripersonal space has an important social function and is modulated by social and affective cues. In this special issue we aimed to provide a state of the art overview of the current investigations and topics on peripersonal space. The idea is to advance this field of research by bringing together multidisciplinary findings about peripersonal space and offering a view of its functions and underlying neural mechanisms.