About this Research Topic
The sense of self is generally considered as the core of our mental life, yet its underlying mechanism remains unclear. Important insights have been gained from research on topics such as the embodied self and self-image in space, and self-reference autobiographic memory, and mental travel across time. There are also many thoughts and studies probing the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the sense of self from basic perceptual processes to complex social cognition. Overall, it seems critical to experience the self as a spatially constrained entity and temporally extended continuousness and to take perspectives both from hierarchical structures of information processes and from various scales in space and time dimensions.
Modern advances in physics have proposed to unify the dimensions of space and time into a single entity, known as the space-time continuum, to regard a particular object as a representation of its space-time union. Similarly, can we regard the self as a combined entity of both its spatial and temporal constructs? How do these spatial and temporal constructs and their integration take place along the processing hierarchy of the self?
This Research Topic aims to accumulate new perspectives, theories, and evidence from spatial and temporal dimensions of the self and their integration/unification. We encourage contributors to take a broader view examining various processing stages and different spatial and temporal aspects and to have an elaborative discussion on the relevant computational models and neural networks. Therefore, advancing toward a more comprehensive and deeper understanding of the mechanism of self.
This Research Topic encourages a variety of article types, including (but not limited to): Hypothesis and Theory, Perspective, Commentary, Opinion, Review, and Case Report.
We particularly encourage submissions that explore the following themes:
• Self-awareness
• Self-concept
• Self-image
• Embodiment
• Self-reference
• Autobiographic memory
• Episodic memory
• Self in the social context
• Neural network, temporal dynamics, and computational models for the sense of self.
• Developmental as well as a cross-species comparison for behavioral and biological correlates of self.
Modern advances in physics have proposed to unify the dimensions of space and time into a single entity, known as the space-time continuum, to regard a particular object as a representation of its space-time union. Similarly, can we regard the self as a combined entity of both its spatial and temporal constructs? How do these spatial and temporal constructs and their integration take place along the processing hierarchy of the self?
This Research Topic aims to accumulate new perspectives, theories, and evidence from spatial and temporal dimensions of the self and their integration/unification. We encourage contributors to take a broader view examining various processing stages and different spatial and temporal aspects and to have an elaborative discussion on the relevant computational models and neural networks. Therefore, advancing toward a more comprehensive and deeper understanding of the mechanism of self.
This Research Topic encourages a variety of article types, including (but not limited to): Hypothesis and Theory, Perspective, Commentary, Opinion, Review, and Case Report.
We particularly encourage submissions that explore the following themes:
• Self-awareness
• Self-concept
• Self-image
• Embodiment
• Self-reference
• Autobiographic memory
• Episodic memory
• Self in the social context
• Neural network, temporal dynamics, and computational models for the sense of self.
• Developmental as well as a cross-species comparison for behavioral and biological correlates of self.
Keywords: the self, Space-Time Continuum, perception, socialcognition
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
