WILL YOU RECOGNISE YOURSELF WHEN YOU WALK INTO YOURSELF IN THE STREET

WILL YOU RECOGNISE YOURSELF

WHEN YOU WALK INTO YOURSELF IN THE STREET

Stes de Necker

Some scientists agree that if you should walk into yourself on the street, you wouldn't recognize that person as you, because our idea of what we look like (from pictures and reflections) is so different from what we actually look like.

It’s no wonder doppelgangers, meaning ‘double walker’ in German, hold a strange fascination for us.

Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain and Alexander Dumas - among others - used them as plot devices in plays and novels.

In modern times, they’ve featured in films such as Richard Gere’s “Sommersby”, Kevin Kline’s “Dave” and even an episode of Friends where Ross met 'Russ'.

However, with 7.5 billion people in the world, even if our doppelganger actually exists, most of us will never set eyes on them.

Or take as an example the case of identical twins. When one of them looks at the other, do they see themselves or simply their twin brother or sister?  

  

So how and when are we able to recognise ourselves, our artistic representation and experience of self portraits, and what happens when something goes wrong.

Recognising yourself in a mirror, drawing or portrait.

Cognitive Neuroscientist Professor Olaf Blanke, explains about the subject:

“Children’s understanding of mirrors comes fairly late in development (between months 15 and 24) and can show striking disparities. A child can recognise herself, passing the mark test (reaching to a trace of paint that is only noticeable when looking in a mirror), and then suddenly ask why ‘she’ is wearing the same jacket as hers. Passing the mark test might certainly be a good index of self-recognition, but failing the mark test is no evidence to the contrary.

Recognising oneself in a mirror probably requires the convergence of several cognitive skills. There is no ‘self-recognition’ module.

These abilities, for example: visuospatial coordination; visuo-kinesthetic integration; theory of mind, can develop in parallel, sequentially and/or hierarchically (i.e. one might be needed for another to appear). For instance, experimental evidence shows that tactile stimuli that are seen on another hand/body/face but at the same time felt on one’s own body induce an experience of ownership (this rubber hand is mine) or identification (this is my body/face). The same goes for motion: something moving in synchrony with our own movements can be learned to be self-attributed.

Interestingly, the ability to recognise oneself in a mirror can be lost after brain damage and is called mirrored self misidentification (a delusion in which patients perceive and conceive their reflection – usually in a mirror, but it has also been observed in ponds or windows – as an embodied stranger). In addition, healthy adults have all kinds of misconceptions about mirrors, so it is fair to say that the human brain is not really fine-tuned for this strange piece of optical-technology."

Remember the tale of Narcissus?

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a Hunter from Thespiae in Boeotia who was known for his beauty. He was the son of the river god Cephissus and nymph Liriope.

He was proud, in that he disdained those who loved him.

Nemesis noticed this behavior and attracted Narcissus to a pool, where he saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with it, not realizing it was merely an image. Unable to leave the beauty of his reflection, Narcissus drowned.

Narcissus is the origin of the term narcissism, a fixation with oneself and one's physical appearance.

What else happens when something goes awry in the brain?

Professor Blanke: "An interesting group of patients can have complex bodily hallucinations, where one can see one’s own body in front of oneself (like a sort of a hologram); perceive the environment from a perspective external to one’s physical body, usually elevated, and see one’s body back in, for example, one’s bed; or even switch perspectives between one’s physical body and a hallucinated body. Sometimes, multiple bodies are perceived, with the patient not necessarily considering them as ‘self’, but still feeling a strong attraction and relation to them.

In addition, other patients can feel as though somebody is standing right behind them, moving in the same way, although no one is there.

These manifestations seem to reflect a deficient mechanism by which the brain mis-localises or duplicates different components of the representations of our bodies.

The act of depicting oneself/others visually or verbally is even more complex.

It is not only visual features and bodily information that should be taken into account here, but also emotional aspects (memories, feelings, beliefs).

Perceiving, imagining one’s body and depicting it are not necessarily based on the same mechanisms. Patients with eating disorders perceive their bodies and draw themselves differently from how they are seen by others.

Curiously, if asked to point to the tips of your fingers, knuckles and the wrist while keeping your hand under the table you will get quite a distorted picture of your hand (e.g. underestimation of finger length, overestimation of hand width). You will, however be very accurate in judging whether an image of a hand is wider or narrower than your own.

Such observations show a difference between the consciously perceived and implicitly stored body image. Also, subtle differences in the image of one-self modulate self-perception and self-representation.

A mirror-reversed image of one’s face is more familiar than a non-reversed view. Both artists and non-artists seem to prefer self-portraits showing their left side. In the general population the detail of self-portraits seems to change with age.

And finally, when encountering yourself in a dream, no visual resemblance at all is needed for you to never doubt that the character was you until waking up. “

Recognising yourself in the street

Recognising yourself in the mirror or portrait seem to be one thing, but recognising yourself in a real life situation, for instance walking into yourself on the street, seems to be quite a different story.

To a large extent the jury is still out on this question and it can be safely assumed that they will not be back for some time soon, for the simple reason that meeting yourself physically on the street is simply not possible.

But it makes for some nice speculation, doesn’t it?