Degraded Visibility Body-Specifically Affects Mental Rotation

The way we perceive our own body is shaped by our perception. Changes in sensory input, such as visual degradation, can lead to visual-to-motor shifts in the reference frame used to mentally represent the body. While this effect has been demonstrated in mental representation of hands, it is still unknown whether it also affects mental representation of other body parts. To fill this gap, we asked 35 neurotypical participants to perform mental rotation (laterality judgement) of hand, foot, and full-body images, while the images’ visibility (figure/background contrast) was manipulated. Visibility deteriorations increased the steepness of the response time (RT) slopes for mental rotation of hand images shown from a less common view (palm) and of foot images from a more common view (dorsum), but not of full-body images from either the common or uncommon views. Suggesting that steeper and flatter RT slopes evoke the activation of a motor- or vision-based cognitive strategy for mental rotation, respectively, we propose that visual deterioration induces body-specific visual-to-motor shifts in mental processing. These findings show that the reliance on visual or motor aspects to mentally represent the body can be modulated by a reduction in sensory input, which changes the employed cognitive strategy.