My current research project investigates the functional role of body ownership in healthy individuals and individuals with Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID). BIID is a rare disorder wherein an individual believes that one of his/her limbs (usually the left leg) does not belong to his/her body. The disorder can lead to disturbing feelings including the desire to amputate or paralyze the ‘disowned’ limb. For my project, healthy participants and patients with BIID will be tested on different visual perceptual tasks in order to investigate the coding of space surrounding the disowned limb. EEG recordings will also be used during sensorimotor observation in order to investigate self-other distinction (i.e. the ability to distinguish your body from that of another). We hope to unravel some of the underlying mechanisms that contribute to the feeling of body ownership and to enhance our knowledge of BIID.
Before starting my PhD at Utrecht University, I was trained at the University of Lethbridge in Canada. My Master’s thesis (M.Sc. Neuroscience) focused on the visual and haptic contributions to hand preference for grasping in healthy and sensory-deprived populations. I also have a Bachelor’s degree in psychology.
Publications:
Stone, K.D., Gonzalez, C.L.R. (2015). The contributions of vision and haptics to reaching and grasping. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1403. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01403
Stone, K.D., Gonzalez C.L.R. (2015). Manual preferences for visually- and haptically-guided grasping. Acta Psychologia, 160, 1-10. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2015.06.004
Gonzalez C.L.R.*, Flindall J.W.*, Stone, K.D.* (2015) Hand preference across the lifespan: Effects of end-goal, task nature, and object location. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1579. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01579
*all authors contributed equally to this manuscript
Flindall J.W., Stone K.D., Gonzalez C.L.R. (2015). Evidence for Right-hand feeding biases in a left-handed population. Laterality, 1-19. doi: 10.1080/1357650X.2014.961472
Stone K.D., Gonzalez C.L.R. (2014). Grasping without sight: Insights from the congenitally blind. PLoS ONE. 9(10), e110175. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0110175
Stone K. D., Gonzalez C. L. R. (2014). Grasping with the eyes of your hands: Hapsis and vision modulate hand preference. Experimental Brain Research, 232(2), 385-393. doi: 10.1007/s00221-013-3746-3
Stone K. D., Bryant D. C., Gonzalez C. L. R. (2013). Hand use for grasping in a bimanual task: Evidence for different roles? Experimental Brain Research, 224(3), 455-67. doi: 10.1007/s00221-012-3325-z