Is Self Special? a Critical Review of Evidence from Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
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Psychological Bulletin Copyright 2005 by the American Psychological Association 2005, Vol. 131, No. 1, 76–97 0033-2909/05/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.131.1.76 Is Self Special? A Critical Review of Evidence From Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Seth J. Gillihan and Martha J. Farah University of Pennsylvania Varied research findings have been taken to support the claim that humans’ representation of the self is “special,” that is, that it emerges from systems that are physically and functionally distinct from those used for more general purpose cognitive processing. The authors evaluate this claim by reviewing the relevant literatures and addressing the criteria for considering a system special, the various operation- alizations of self, and how the studies’ findings relate to the conclusions drawn. The authors conclude that many of the claims for the special status of self-related processing are premature given the evidence and that the various self-related research programs do not seem to be illuminating a unitary, common system, despite individuals’ subjective experience of a unified self. A basic goal of information-processing psychology is to char- mation about other people and their mental states, often termed acterize the computational architecture of the mind, that is, to theory of mind; as concluded by Vogeley and colleagues (2001), delineate the components of the information-processing system “Theory of mind and self involve at least in part separate neural and describe their functions. Within this common framework, mechanisms” (p. 180). Other researchers have proposed specific theories differ according to how many distinct components are neural localizations of self-related processing in general, although posited and how specialized their functions are. In the case of some their localizations have varied. For example, the left hemisphere kinds of human information processing, claims of extreme spe- has been hypothesized to be critical for recognition of our own cialization have been made. Language, for example, is often said face as well as “autobiographical knowledge, personal beliefs, to be a product of systems that are physically and functionally currently active goal states and conceptions of self” (Turk et al., distinct from those used for more general-purpose cognitive pro- 2002, p. 842; see also Kircher et al., 2000). A similar role has also cessing—in other words, language has been claimed to be special. been claimed for the right hemisphere in the context of right Evidence for the claim that language is special includes its reliance prefrontal activation: “There is growing evidence that processing on a network of perisylvian brain areas that are not needed for of self-related information (e.g., autobiographical memory, self- nonlinguistic sound recognition or vocalization and its species face identification, theory of mind) is related to activity in the right specificity. Face recognition is also considered special by many frontal cortex” (Platek, Myers, Critton, & Gallup, 2003, p. 147; see because it relies on parts of ventral visual cortex that are not also Devinksy, 2000; Miller et al., 2001). It has also been noted needed for visual recognition of nonface objects and because face that right lateral parietal cortex is implicated in the representation representation is more holistic than the representation of other of the physical and mental self and hence plays a role in “self- objects. representation in general” (Lou et al., 2004, p. 6831). Finally, In recent years another cognitive capacity has been accorded medial prefrontal cortex in both hemispheres has been proposed as “special” status by some researchers, namely, the representation of a site of the “self model . a theoretical construct comprising the self. In the words of Kircher and colleagues (2000), “Process- essential features such as feelings of continuity and unity, experi- ing of self-relevant information and self knowledge is regarded as ence of agency, and body-centered perspective” (Fossati et al., distinct from processing ‘objective’ information” (p. 133). It is 2003, p. 1943; see also Frith & Frith, 1999; Gusnard, Akbudak, regarded by some as distinct even from the processing of infor- Shulman, & Raichle, 2001; S. C. Johnson et al., 2002; Kelley et al., 2002; Wicker, Ruby, Royet, & Fonlupt, 2003). A wide variety of research has been undertaken to test the claim Seth J. Gillihan and Martha J. Farah, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, that our representation of the self is special. The research encom- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania. passes behavioral studies with normal humans as well as with We thank the following individuals for helpful comments on drafts of neurological and psychiatric patient populations and functional this article: Todd Feinberg, Andrea Heberlein, Julian Keenan, Tilo Kircher, neuroimaging studies with normal humans and patients. The and John Sabini. Thanks to Lesley Fellows and Cyrena Gawuga for help information-processing domains in which self processing has been with figures. The writing of this article was supported by National Insti- examined are likewise varied, including vision, somathesis, se- tutes of Health Grants R01 AG-14082-04, K02 AG-00756-04, and R01 mantic and episodic memory, and attention. The strength of sup- DA14129 and National Science Foundation Grant 0226060. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Seth J. port for a special “self” system comes partly from the wide array Gillihan, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, of methods used as well as the diversity of domains in which University of Pennsylvania, 3720 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. self-specific processing has been observed. Indeed, authors often E-mail: [email protected] cite converging evidence from different kinds of studies—for 76 IS SELF SPECIAL? 77 example, explicitly relating first-person perspective in spatial nav- The Many Meanings of Self and the Scope igation to first-person narrative comprehension (Vogeley & Fink, of This Review 2003), self-face recognition to self memory (e.g., Keenan, Freund, Hamilton, Ganis, & Pascual-Leone, 2000), or awareness of the Like many fundamental concepts in psychology, such as “con- boundaries of one’s own body to awareness of relation of self to sciousness,” “attention,” “perception,” and “memory,” the concept social environment (Devinsky, 2000). Wicker et al. (2003) at- of “self” is difficult to define in an explicit and noncircular way. tempted to localize brain areas recruited for self-related processing Nevertheless, most people’s intuitions about what constitutes an by integrating neuroimaging results from studies covering emo- example of self-related cognition, like most people’s intuitions tion, autobiographical memory, face recognition, and other pro- about what constitutes examples of these other fundamental con- cepts, are in agreement most of the time, and the absence of a cesses related to the self. precise definition is not necessarily an obstacle to progress. In- Although others have presented reviews of studies that bear on deed, one could argue that empirical research has clarified what we the topic of self-related processing, to our knowledge none have mean by these terms and that the complete definition of a concept yet addressed the specific issue of whether the self is special across such as “self” may emerge over time in the course of research a range of processing domains. Existing reviews have either ad- rather than being a prerequisite for research. dressed the question of whether the self is special in relation to a A commonsensical approach to the meaning of self acknowl- particular aspect of self-related processing (e.g., the self-reference edges both physical and psychological aspects. Studies of the effect in memory, described later) or summarized a broader range physical self focus on either specific body parts—the face, arm, of findings about self-related processing without addressing the and hand—or the body as a whole and the spatial relations among question of whether, or in what sense, it is special. Throughout this its parts. For purposes of our review, the relevant studies are those review we cite previous reviews that provide more thorough sum- that examine whether these aspects of the body are processed maries of published research in various domains of self processing, differently in the case of the individual’s own body—for example, and we focus our review on those studies that directly address the if one’s own face is recognized in a different way from other question of whether self-related processing is in some sense familiar faces. Studies of the psychological self encompass knowl- special. edge of the self, including episodic memory knowledge (e.g., We attempt to answer the question, Is self-related processing specific autobiographical events) and semantic memory knowl- special? in the context of four related questions. The first concerns edge (e.g., facts about oneself), as well as the first-person perspec- the meaning of special: By what criteria might we consider a tive of the self. Here we review studies that test whether self- system special, and which of these is relevant for each given knowledge and first-person perspective are functions of systems study? The second concerns the meaning of self: Exactly what is separate from knowledge of others and their perspectives. Finally, meant by self, and how is self operationalized in each given