Body representation disorders have a key role in the characterization of obesity. So far, the literature consistently pointed to a negative attitudinal body image. Conversely, after reviewing the pertinent literature, it emerges that more incoherent results have been reported for the self-perceived body size. Chapter 2 tries to clarify this issue by adopting a more innovative theoretical framework (i.e., the implicit/explicit model; Longo, 2015). For the first time, we probed the implicit representation underlying position sense in obesity, reporting a similar representation to healthy weight participants. Importantly, this result shows that not all components of body representation are affected by obesity. Chapter 3 addresses another aspect of body representation that has been neglected in obesity, namely bodily self-consciousness. The Rubber Hand Illusion has been traditionally used to investigate the mechanisms underlying body awareness. Our results show that individuals with obesity have comparable subjective experience of the illusion, while the effect of the illusion on self-location is reduced. This dissociation can be interpreted as the result of a preserved visuo-tactile integration and an altered visuo-proprioceptive integration in obesity. However, in Chapter 4 we reported that individuals with obesity have a reduced temporal resolution of visuo-tactile integration, meaning that they integrated stimuli over an extended range of asynchronies than healthy weight participants. In fact, this evidence predicts that in the RHI individuals with obesity might perceive more synchronously the asynchronous stimulation, showing a greater effect of the illusion also in this condition. Nevertheless, we failed to show this pattern of results in our study with an interval of asynchronous stimulation of 1000 ms (usually adopted in the RHI paradigm). We hypothesized that smaller time-lags, which are inside the temporal binding window of individuals with obesity and outside the temporal binding widow of healthy weight participants, might not be perceived by individuals with obesity but detected by healthy weight individuals. Accordingly, a dissimilar susceptibility to the illusion should be observed. Chapter 5 investigates this issue by adopting a modified version of the RHI that enables a parametrical modulation of the timing of the stimulation. However, we could not replicate the RHI even in healthy weight participants. The possible methodological reasons for this failure are discussed. Overall, this work tries to fill some gaps in the previous literature about body representation in obesity. Moreover, our findings provide an important clue about the possible cognitive mechanisms involved in body representation disorders in obesity. However, many questions still need an answer: due to the complexity of the domain a comprehensive knowledge of the topic might be challenging. A deep understanding of obesity is fundamental to develop multidisciplinary and efficacious rehabilitative protocols. Indeed, better treatments would significantly ameliorate individuals’ well-being but also contribute to reduce the huge health costs related to obesity comorbidities.

Following stroke, a patient may fail to report touch administered by another person but claim that s/he feels touch when it is self-administered. In Part One, the self-touch rubber hand paradigm was used to investigate different explanations for this phenomenon, termed self-touch enhancement. The most important finding was that patients reported touch based on feeling rather than by using proprioceptive information. Some patients have residual sensation that could be targeted in sensory rehabilitation. Part Two is a systematic investigation of the illusion of self-touch conducted with neurologically healthy participants. Participants used the right hand to administer touch to a prosthetic hand while the left (receptive) hand, positioned 15 cm from the prosthetic hand, received Examiner-administered touch. Proprioceptively perceived position of the administering and receptive hand was measured. Most participants experienced the single event of self-touch at the location of the receptive hand. Previous investigations have relied on measurement of only one hand and have concluded that participants experience self-touch at the location of the prosthetic hand. Our findings have implications for the role of ownership in this illusion. There is also a series of experiments in Part Two which test four potential constraints on the illusion of self-touch – violated expectations about the object that is administering touch, increased distance between the hands, alignment mismatch, and anatomical implausibility. For example, one study uses a novel paradigm to demonstrate that, although the subjective intensity of the illusion of self-touch is diminished by anatomical implausibility, most participants report the impossible experience of touching their left elbow with their own left index finger. Taken together, these experiments highlight the malleability of body representation, and provide a comprehensive framework for understanding the illusion of self-touch.

The Master's thesis deals with issues of representation of business corporation by its governing body. The thesis is composed of an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. Every chapter consists of four parts. The last part of each chapter contains brief summary of the most important issues of the particular chapter. The main aim of this thesis is to analyze most important issues concerning with representation of business corporation by its governing body and to compare recent legislation with the legislation effective till the 31st December 2013. The aim of this thesis is also to evaluate the changes which occurred in accordance to the new legislation and to examine if it is possible to use former jurisprudence recently. The first chapter is considered as introductory and contains the explanation of basic terms which are important for the other parts of the thesis. The first chapter is focused on definition of business corporation and evaluation if the business corporation is capable of acquiring rights and incurring obligations or not. In the first chapter it is also described the issue of corporation's representatives and scope of their powers. The second chapter is concerned with the representation of business corporation by members of its governing body. At the beginning of this chapter...

There has been a recent growth of interest in exploring the complexities of multisensory processes underlying human body representation. One cross-modal aspect of body representations involves the visuotactile body mapping between tactile stimulation of a body limb and the observation of a body limb. Previous findings demonstrate that visual information influences the spatial and temporal patterning of brain responses to tactile stimulation. By manipulating the congruency of the visuotactile stimuli, the integration of visual and tactile information of the body can be investigated further. In the current studies, electroencephalography (EEG) was used to record the neural responses to touch during congruent and incongruent visuotactile stimuli in adults and infants. Two studies investigated different characteristics of visuotactile congruency on the neural response to touch during observations of others’ bodies. In Study 1, spatial congruency of visuotactile events in adults was examined by recording electrophysiological responses to tactile stimulation of the hand in different postural positions while viewing pictures of hands. In Study 2, visuotactile body mappings were explored within typically developing, preverbal infants. In the second study, infants received tactile stimulation to their hand or foot while viewing the hand or foot of another person. The findings of both studies indicate neural modulations were driven by the viewed stimuli regardless of the visuotactile congruency suggestive of attentional factors at work during late stages of somatosensory processing. / Psychology

For a long time, most women believed they had to choose between their Muslim or Arab identity and their belief in social equality of sexes. It was almost impossible to choose between either betraying their religious beliefs or their desires for social, political and economic justice, up until an upsurge of a feminist sentiment started to grow among women who were seeking to reclaim the Islamic paradigm and the Quran for themselves in the late nineteenth century (Bardan, 2005). During that time, contemporary female artists from the Arab and Muslim worlds started to create their own tools in their fight against oppressive patriarchal societies in order to express their feminine powers and renegotiate their identities. In this thesis, I analyze the feminist tools used in paradigmatic photo-based artworks by three contemporary female artists from the Arab and Muslim worlds: Mona Hatoum, Shirin Neshat, and Lalla Essaydi.

We all have a body : our own body and just one body. Through it, we move, we interact with the world and other persons, we perceive, basically we live. It's a unique essential object. If it is true that we have only one physical body, we also have many representations of it in the brain. There is little agreement about the exact number of body representations in the brain, but not on the fact that we have more than one. The multi-componential models of body representation are based on the notion, supported by scientific evidence that different activities demand and rely on specifically adapted representations. In my thesis, I studied one particular body representation that is used and involved in action planning and execution, i.e. the Body Schema. I have been able to describe and measure the plasticity of the Body Schema and its level of specificity in healthy individuals. In particular, using a tool-use paradigm, I showed that the Body Schema is quickly and efficiently updated once a change in the body configuration occurs. With a series of kinematic studies, I contributed unveiling the ingredients that rule the plasticity of the BS and the sensory information that is used to this purpose. As a result of my thesis, I suggest that a clearer definition and operational description of the Body Schema, as an action-devoted repertoire of effectors representations, is possible, particularly thanks to its plastic features

Tapybos darbų kolekcijoje nagrinėjama socialinė, psichologinė problematika, kur formų, spalvų, dėmių ir kitų detalių visuma virsta tam tikra ženklų sankaupa, paveiki psichologinėmis formomis. Visa tai transformuojasi į trijų darbų kolekciją : " TARP MEILĖS IR PRIKLAUSOMYBĖS/STOKHOLMO SINDROMAS1/ODI DE AMO2" - tai psichologinė emocinė sąvoka reiškianti, įkaito priklausomybę nuo kito žmogaus arba tam tikras dvilypiškumo sąsajas. Personažai, turintys skirtingus vaidmenis, pvz., lyčių stereotipus,”<...> kai moteris sąmoningai tapatinasi vien su savo moteriškumu ir ignoruoja animus (t.y vyriškumo) energiją, jai sunku būti objektyviai, diferencijuoti, vertinti, atsirinkti, orientuotis pasaulyje. Visas šias funkcijas ji perleidžia vyrui ir dėl to yra priklausoma nuo jo <...>”3. Tai rodo vyro ir moters, skirtingus simbolinius opozicinius lyčių skirtumus. Vyro - dominavimą, valdžią, moters – paklusnumą. Taigi trapios, dramatiškai inscenizuotos moteriškos figūros, pasimetusios uždaroje erdvėje, apsuptos vyriškumo, parodo „<...>žmogaus izoliaciją ir kovą, o kartu nuolatinį poreikį grįžti į pradžią ir pradėti iš naujo<...>“.4 Darbų ciklui sukurti naudojamos skaitmeninės fotografijos, eskizai, tapybiniai bandymai. Remiantis sukaupta vizualine medžiaga, eskizavimu, sukurta trijų darbų kolekcija, aliejinės tapybos bei graffiti technologijomis ant medžio plokštės. / In collection of paintings, topic and expression, analyses the social, psychological problems, where forms, colors, spots and other parts of a whole becomes particular aggregate of signs, influencing psychological forms. This entire are being transformed into a collection of three works " between love and addiction / STOCKHOLM SYNDROME / ODI DE AMO - this is a psychological concept of emotion which means dependence on other person or particular links of ambivalent. Personages have different roles, such as, stereotypes of gender, " ... when a woman deliberately identifies themselves only with their own femininity and ignores the animus (i.e., masculinity ) energy, it is difficult to be objective, to differentiate, evaluate, select and oriented in the world. All these functions that she gives to man and for this she is dependable on him <..>. This represents men’s and woman's different symbolical oppositions genders differences. Man's - dominance, authority, women’s - humility. So fragile, staged a dramatic female figures, lost in an enclosed space surrounded by the male, shows " ... the human isolation and fight, and together the constant need to go back to the beginning and start over ... ".4 To create a cycle of works are being used digital photography’s, sketches, and tests of paintings. Sustaining stored visual materials, sketching, was created a collection of three works, oily paintings and technologies of graphities on panel of wood.

Holistic image processing is tied to expertise and is characteristic of face and body processing by adults. Infants process faces holistically, but it is unknown whether infants process body information holistically. In the present study, we examined whether infants discriminate changes in body posture holistically. Body posture is an important nonverbal cue that signals emotion, intention, and goals of others even from a distance. In the current study, infants were tested for discrimination between body postures that differ in limb orientations in three conditions: in the context of the whole body, with just the limbs that change orientation, or with the limbs in the context of scrambled body parts. Nine-month olds discriminated between whole body postures, but failed in the isolated parts and scrambled body conditions, indicating that they use holistic processes to discriminate body information. In contrast, 3.5-month olds failed to discriminate between whole body postures, therefore no conclusion can be drawn about their ability to process bodies holistically. These results indicate that infants process body information holistically during the first year of life, but there are developmental changes in the processing of body information from 3.5 to 9 months of age.

This paper examines how consumers view and react to diverse body representations in fashion media. To research this, a qualitative interview in a group setting was chosen as the method. The participants were shown images of 13 different models and asked to reflect on them. With the help of Crenshaw’s theory on intersectionality and Ahmed’s phenomenological theory on orientations, the participants’ responses were analyzed. The conclusion is that intersecting identities do not affect the participants’ reactions to the bodies represented, but that the participants’ tend to focus on one identity at a time. By focusing on one identity at a time, the conclusion that the participants’ put a bigger focus on diverse body sizes being represented is also brought forward. Along with these conclusions, this study also shows that the participants are aware of companies orienting themtowards certain standards.

Nous avons tous un corps, et seulement un corps. Grâce à lui, nous nous déplaçons dans l’espace, nous interagissons avec le monde extérieur et les autres individus qui l’habitent, nous percevons, bref, nous vivons. Il s’agit d’un objet unique et essentiel. Cependant, bien que nous ayons un seul corps, il en existe dans le cerveau plusieurs représentations. Peu d’accord existe en littérature sur le nombre de représentation, mais tout le monde concorde sur le fait qu’il en existe plus qu’une. Les modèles de la représentation corporelle sont basés sur une notion de séparation des fonctions, selon laquelle activités différentes requièrent différentes représentations. Au cours de ma thèse j’ai étudié une de ces représentations dont la fonction principale est de fournir une connaissance du corps utile à l’action. Cette représentation est nommée Schéma Corporel. En particulier, en utilisant une technique comportementale puissante telle que la cinématique, j’ai pu montrer, pour la première fois, que le Schéma Corporel est une représentation extrêmement plastique, capable d’intégrer des outils lorsqu’ils sont utilisés pour effectuer une action. Ensuite, j’ai pu décrire cette propriété plastique du Schéma Corporel en montrant quelles informations sensorielles sont nécessaires et quels aspects des outils sont intégrés dans la représentation du corps. Les résultats de mes études expérimentales, ainsi que mon travail de synthèse de la littérature, m’ont permis d’élaborer une définition opérative du Schéma Corporel et de sa plasticité / We all have a body : our own body and just one body. Through it, we move, we interact with the world and other persons, we perceive, basically we live. It’s a unique essential object. If it is true that we have only one physical body, we also have many representations of it in the brain. There is little agreement about the exact number of body representations in the brain, but not on the fact that we have more than one. The multi-componential models of body representation are based on the notion, supported by scientific evidence that different activities demand and rely on specifically adapted representations. In my thesis, I studied one particular body representation that is used and involved in action planning and execution, i.e. the Body Schema. I have been able to describe and measure the plasticity of the Body Schema and its level of specificity in healthy individuals. In particular, using a tool-use paradigm, I showed that the Body Schema is quickly and efficiently updated once a change in the body configuration occurs. With a series of kinematic studies, I contributed unveiling the ingredients that rule the plasticity of the BS and the sensory information that is used to this purpose. As a result of my thesis, I suggest that a clearer definition and operational description of the Body Schema, as an action-devoted repertoire of effectors representations, is possible, particularly thanks to its plastic features