Spontaneous Eye Movements following Touch Reflect Canonical Body Postures

Localizing tactile stimuli on the body requires access to postural information. Whether this information regards the current or the default body posture is debated. Using eye-tracking, we uncovered which postural information is activated while human participants localized stimuli on their hand placed in different configurations. The study provides straightforward evidence that we use information about the body in canonical postures to localize tactile stimuli on body parts. Hence, we show that tactile localization induces spontaneous gaze shifts whose direction depicts a hand in a palm-up or in a palm-down posture, even when a different hand posture is adopted. Moreover, the study provides compelling evidence that instead of a single default posture, different canonical postures are activated depending on the task.