Self-Representation in Nervous Systems.
Abstract
The brain's earliest self-representational capacities arose as evolution found neural network solutions for coordinating and regulating inner-body signals, thereby improving behavioral strategies. Additional flexibility in organizing coherent behavioral options emerges from neural models that represent some of the brain's inner states as states of its body, while representing other signals as perceptions of the external world. Brains manipulate inner models to predict the distinct consequences in the external world of distinct behavioral options. The self thus turns out to be identifiable not with a nonphysical soul, but rather with a set of representational capacities of the physical brain.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Having the experience of being the owner of one's body is adaptive, and its function probably relates to the problem of localising and correctly identifying oneself in the sensory environment.
“Having the experience of being the owner of one's body is clearly adaptive, and its function probably relates to the problem of localising and correctly identifying oneself in the sensory environment [9], [10], a problem faced by all central nervous systems [11].”
From If I were you: Perceptual illusion of body swapping (2008) · cites this paper as [11]
Cites
Hume, D. (1739) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511620409.040 · Cited by 9,866 · see citing works
Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions
Panksepp, J. (1998) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780195096736.001.0001 · Cited by 4,428 · see citing works
PINKER, S. (1999) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1999.tb08538.x · Cited by 3,738 · see citing works
(1996) · Cited by 3,692 · see citing works
An internal model for sensorimotor integration
Wolpert, D. M., Ghahramani, Z., & Jordan, M. I. (1995) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.7569931 · Cited by 3,553 · see citing works
Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy
Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1997) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.275.5304.1293 · Cited by 3,547 · see citing works
The Construction of the Self: A Developmental Perspective
Harter, S., & Leahy, R. L. (2001) · Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy · doi:10.1891/0889-8391.15.4.383 · Cited by 2,005 · see citing works
Special sciences (or: The disunity of science as a working hypothesis)
Fodor, J. A. (1974) · Synthese · doi:10.1007/bf00485230 · Cited by 1,815 · see citing works
Churchland, P. S. (1986) · The MIT Press eBooks · doi:10.7551/mitpress/4952.001.0001 · Cited by 1,752 · see citing works
Self-citationImpairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex
Anderson, S. W., Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1999) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/14833 · Cited by 1,539 · see citing works
Lakoff, G. P. (1999) · Cited by 1,523 · see citing works
Tomasello, M., & Call, J. (1997) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780195106237.001.0001 · Cited by 1,491 · see citing works
(2014) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.51-4946 · Cited by 772 · see citing works
Reduced prefrontal activity predicts exaggerated striatal dopaminergic function in schizophrenia
Meyer-Lindenberg, A., Miletich, R. S., Kohn, P. D., Esposito, G., Carson, R. E., Quarantelli, M., Weinberger, D. R., & Berman, K. F. (2002) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nn804 · Cited by 652 · see citing works
Some Effects of Disconnecting the Cerebral Hemispheres
Sperry, R. W. (1982) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.7112125 · Cited by 463 · see citing works
Brain-wise: studies in neurophilosophy
(2003) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.41-0268 · Cited by 357 · see citing works
When Self-Consciousness Breaks
Stephens, G. L., & Graham, G. (2000) · The MIT Press eBooks · doi:10.7551/mitpress/7218.001.0001 · Cited by 160 · see citing works
The architecture of representation
Grush, R. (1997) · Philosophical Psychology · doi:10.1080/09515089708573201 · Cited by 144 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
How do you feel — now? The anterior insula and human awareness
(Bud) Craig, A. D. (2009) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nrn2555 · Cited by 6,657 · see citing works
How do you feel? Interoception: The sense of the physiological condition of the body
Craig, A. D. (2002) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nrn894 · Cited by 6,006 · see citing works
Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain
Singer, T., Seymour, B., O'Doherty, J., Kaube, H., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2004) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1093535 · Cited by 3,929 · see citing works
Self-referential processing in our brain—A meta-analysis of imaging studies on the self
Northoff, G., Heinzel, A., de Greck, M., Bermpohl, F., Dobrowolny, H., & Panksepp, J. (2006) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.12.002 · Cited by 2,792 · see citing works
Cortical midline structures and the self
Northoff, G., & Bermpohl, F. (2004) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2004.01.004 · Cited by 1,446 · see citing works
If I were you: Perceptual illusion of body swapping
Petkova, V. I., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2008) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003832 · Cited by 953 · see citing works
Fundamentals of physiological computing
Fairclough, S. H. (2009) · Interacting with Computers · doi:10.1016/j.intcom.2008.10.011 · Cited by 608 · see citing works
David, N., Bewernick, B. H., Cohen, M. X., Newen, A., Lux, S., Fink, G. R., Shah, N. J., & Vogeley, K. (2006) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/jocn.2006.18.6.898 · Cited by 252 · see citing works
Self-related awareness and emotion regulation
Herwig, U., Kaffenberger, T., Jäncke, L., & Brühl, A. B. (2010) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.12.089 · Cited by 189 · see citing works
Philippi, C. L., Feinstein, J. S., Khalsa, S. S., Damasio, A., Tranel, D., Landini, G., Williford, K., & Rudrauf, D. (2012) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0038413 · Cited by 144 · see citing works
Brain imaging of the self-conceptual, anatomical and methodological issues
Northoff, G., Qin, P., & Feinberg, T. E. (2011) · Consciousness and Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.concog.2010.09.011 · Cited by 135 · see citing works
Neural correlates of a 'pessimistic' attitude when anticipating events of unknown emotional valence
Herwig, U., Kaffenberger, T., Baumgartner, T., & Jäncke, L. (2007) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.09.035 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Neural correlates of 'pessimistic' attitude in depression
Herwig, U., Brühl, A. B., Kaffenberger, T., Baumgartner, T., Boeker, H., & Jäncke, L. (2010) · Psychological Medicine · doi:10.1017/s0033291709991073 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
Toward an explanatory framework for mental ownership
Lane, T. (2012) · Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1007/s11097-012-9252-4 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
- Authors
- Churchland, P. S.
- Affiliations
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Corresponding author
- Churchland, Patricia S.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2002-04-12
- Volume
- 296
- Issue
- 5566
- Pages
- 308-310
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W2092107676
- Cited by
- 160
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 4.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- self-representation, self, neural models, inner models, inner states, perception, prediction, behavior, brain evolution, artificial neural networks, philosophy of mind
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Awareness, Behavior, Mental Disorders, Body Image, Brain, Consciousness, Biological Evolution, Humans, Mental Processes, Nerve Net, Nervous System Diseases, Nervous System Physiological Phenomena, Self Concept
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
