Data from: Premature birth affects visual body representation and body schema in preterm children

Raw data used for the article "Premature birth affects visual body representation and body schema in preterm children" Research has demonstrated that from the first six months of life infants show early sensitivity to body visual features and rely on sensorimotor and proprioceptive inputs in forming representations of their own bodies. Premature birth interferes with typical exposition to visual, sensorimotor and proprioceptive stimulation, thus presumably affecting the development of body representations. Here, we tested this hypothesis by comparing the performance of preterm children with that of age-matched full-term children in two tasks assessing, respectively, visual body processing and body schema. We found that preterm children had spared configural processing but altered holistic processing of others’ bodies and showed a general difficulty in expressing visuospatial judgements on body stimuli. Furthermore, body-centered visuospatial abilities were associated with specific impairments in operating object-based visuospatial transformations. The findings of this study indicate that preterm birth might interfere with the development of body representations at the levels of body visual perceptual processing and of body schema, with effects even on visuo-spatial abilities for non-bodily stimuli. Body-centered rehabilitative interventions should be proposed to preterm children in order to enhance visuo-spatial abilities and higher-level cognitive functions.用于论文《早产影响早产儿的视觉身体表征（body representation）与身体图式（body schema）》的原始数据 研究表明，婴儿在出生后的前六个月便已对身体视觉特征表现出早期敏感性，并依赖感觉运动（sensorimotor）与本体感受（proprioceptive）输入来构建自身的身体表征。早产会干扰婴儿正常接触视觉、感觉运动与本体感受刺激的过程，因此可能会影响身体表征的发育。本研究通过两项任务分别评估视觉身体加工与身体图式，并比较早产儿与年龄匹配的足月儿的作业表现，以此验证上述假设。本研究发现，早产儿对他人身体的构型加工（configural processing）得以保留，但整体加工（holistic processing）出现异常，且在对身体刺激进行视觉空间（visuospatial）判断时普遍存在困难。此外，以身体为中心的视觉空间能力与基于客体的视觉空间转换操作中的特定损伤存在关联。本研究结果表明，早产可能会在身体视觉知觉加工与身体图式层面干扰身体表征的发育，其影响甚至会波及非身体刺激的视觉空间能力。因此，应为早产儿实施以身体为中心的康复干预，以提升其视觉空间能力与高级认知功能。