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Proprioceptive spatial construction: spatial reasoning through the body's hidden sense

Some individuals can construct, manipulate, and navigate spatial representations of objects — including objects they have never physically touched — entirely through proprioceptive channels, without any visual imagery whatsoever. This phenomenon, which we term proprioceptive spatial construction (PSC), has no adequate label in the existing cognitive science taxonomy. It is not kinesthetic imagery (rehearsing a motor action through body-feel), not proprioceptive imagery as currently defined (imagining one's hand at a displaced position), and not haptic imagery (recalling touch experiences with previously encountered objects). PSC is the use of the body's position-sensing system as a generative spatial reasoning instrument — constructing manipulable models of conceptual or physical objects in peripersonal space using hand position as a coordinate scaffold, without prior tactile experience of the object and without visual simulation of any kind.

Converging evidence from aphantasia research, blindness studies, embodied cognition, and multisensory neuroscience establishes that the parietal cortex operates as a supramodal spatial processing hub accepting proprioceptive, tactile, vestibular, and visual inputs interchangeably — meaning spatial cognition is fundamentally modality-independent. For individuals with aphantasia who lack voluntary visual imagery entirely, body-based spatial strategies represent not compensatory workarounds but access to a genuinely distinct representational system grounded in the body's position-sensing apparatus. However, none of the existing imagery categories adequately describe the full scope of what this system can do. This report synthesizes frontier research across seven domains to map the science surrounding PSC — identifying what existing terms cover, where the taxonomic gap lies, and what the neural and behavioral evidence tells us about this uncharted modality.

The taxonomic gap: what existing terms cover and what they miss

The cognitive science literature has developed a taxonomy of non-visual imagery modalities, but none of them describe PSC. Understanding why requires examining each term precisely.

Kinesthetic imagery (KI) is the most established term, explicitly defined as "proprioceptive (or somato-) sensory imagination" in Kim et al. (2021, Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-82241-0). However, KI is studied almost exclusively within the framework of motor imagery — the mental rehearsal of actions. Marc Jeannerod's foundational taxonomy (1994, Behavioral and Brain Sciences) defined motor imagery as having two sub-modalities: visual motor imagery (seeing a movement in the mind's eye) and kinesthetic motor imagery (feeling the movement through proprioceptive-somatosensory channels). In practice, KI means imagining yourself performing an action — swinging a bat, walking, reaching. The subject of the imagination is one's own body in motion. PSC is not motor rehearsal. The hands are not the thing being imagined; they are the instrument generating a spatial representation of something else entirely.

Proprioceptive imagery as used by Longo et al. (2017, Cognition, DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.01.021) refers specifically to imagining one's hand at a position and posture different from its actual configuration — a displaced body-position representation. This is closer to PSC in that it involves static position sense rather than movement, but it remains a representation of one's own body. In PSC, the proprioceptive system is being used to construct a model of an external object or concept — the body serves as coordinate scaffolding, not as the represented entity.

Haptic imagery refers to mental representations derived from exploratory touch of previously encountered objects. The critical assumption is prior tactile experience — you can generate haptic imagery of a tennis ball because you have held one. PSC involves constructing spatial models of objects that may never have been physically handled. Holding a conceptual model of the brain in one's hands, navigating its surface, pulling it apart by hemisphere — these operations reference anatomical knowledge but do not replay stored tactile experiences.

Tactile/somatosensory imagery (Schmidt & Blankenburg, 2019, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience; de Borst & de Gelder, 2017, Cerebral Cortex, DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhw211) refers to imagining cutaneous sensations — the feel of texture, pressure, vibration at specific body locations. Multivariate pattern analysis confirms that primary somatosensory cortex carries modality-specific representations during tactile imagery that parallel those during actual perception. This is sensation-focused, not spatial-construction-focused.

What PSC actually involves. The phenomenon in question has the following defining features that collectively distinguish it from all existing categories: (1) the proprioceptive system is used to generate spatial structure, not to replay stored motor patterns or tactile memories; (2) the represented object is external to the body — a conceptual or physical entity, not one's own limb; (3) the spatial model can be manipulated — navigated as a surface, disassembled, rotated — using ongoing proprioceptive input from the hands; (4) the process requires eyes closed, suggesting visual input interferes with the spatial construction; (5) the process requires a still or quiet cognitive state, suggesting competition from narrative/default-mode processing degrades the signal; (6) the object being constructed may never have been physically touched, meaning the spatial model is being built from conceptual knowledge and projected into proprioceptive coordinate space.

PSC thus sits at the intersection of proprioceptive processing, spatial cognition, and conceptual representation — but is not adequately captured by any existing term. The remainder of this report examines the evidence from adjacent research domains that collectively triangulate toward PSC as a real, neurally grounded phenomenon.

Aphantasia reveals that spatial reasoning is not visual

The single most compelling evidence that body-based spatial processing constitutes a genuinely independent system comes from aphantasia research. People with aphantasia — estimated at 2–5% of the population (Zeman et al., 2020, Cortex) — lack voluntary visual imagery entirely, yet they perform spatial tasks with remarkable competence.

In a landmark 2021 study, Bainbridge, Pounder, Eardley, and Baker (Cortex, DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.11.014) asked 61 aphantasics and 52 controls to study photographs of rooms and then draw them from memory. The results revealed a striking double dissociation: aphantasics drew significantly fewer objects and less color (impaired object memory) but placed objects at correct locations with correct relative sizes at rates equivalent to controls (preserved spatial memory). They also made significantly fewer false memory errors. On the Object-Spatial Imagery Questionnaire (OSIQ), aphantasics scored far below controls on the Object subscale but showed no significant difference on the Spatial subscale — a pattern replicated across multiple studies (Keogh & Pearson, 2018, Cortex; Dawes et al., 2020, Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-65705-7).

Mental rotation performance follows the same pattern. Kay, Keogh, and Pearson (2024, Consciousness and Cognition, DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2024.103694) tested aphantasics on 3D Shepard-Metzler block rotation and found they were slower but more accurate than controls. Both groups showed the classic linear increase in reaction time with angular disparity — the hallmark signature of genuine mental rotation. The critical difference was strategy: controls favored holistic object-based mental rotation, while aphantasics favored analytic strategies based on spatial rules and relationships.

What strategies do aphantasics actually use? Reeder et al. (2024, Cognition, DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105907) categorized strategy use across five types — visual, spatial, verbal, semantic, and sensorimotor — during a visual working memory task. Aphantasics overwhelmingly preferred non-visual spatial and sensorimotor strategies over verbal strategies, and their performance was indistinguishable from controls who used visual strategies. The strategy preference hierarchy for aphantasics runs: spatial > sensorimotor > verbal > semantic > visual (corroborated by Hayes, Miles, & Evans, 2026, New Ideas in Psychology, DOI: 10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101215). As Ian Phillips argued in a 2025 Trends in Cognitive Sciences commentary, spared spatial imagery is the solution to the "aphantasia puzzle" — the question of how aphantasics perform normally on tasks presumed to require imagery.

This dissociation maps onto the well-established ventral/dorsal stream architecture first described by Farah, Hammond, Levine, and Calvanio (1988, Cognitive Psychology) and Levine, Warach, and Farah (1985, Neurology): the ventral "what" stream processes object appearance (color, texture, form), while the dorsal "where" stream handles spatial relations, transformations, and locations. Aphantasia primarily affects the ventral stream while leaving the dorsal stream substantially intact.

Critically, the aphantasia literature consistently identifies the sensorimotor strategy as a distinct category from verbal or spatial-abstract strategies, and aphantasics preferentially select it. This is the closest the existing research comes to documenting PSC — but the literature categorizes it as a "compensatory" strategy rather than investigating it as a spatial construction modality in its own right.

The body as a spatial reasoning instrument

Embodied cognition research provides the theoretical framework for understanding how proprioceptive channels can support spatial reasoning generally, even though this literature has not specifically identified PSC.

Lawrence Barsalou's perceptual symbol systems theory (1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x99002149) proposes that all cognition is grounded in modal sensory-motor simulation — concepts are represented through "simulators" that produce partial re-enactments of sensory-motor experience. Under this framework, the idea of constructing a spatial model of a conceptual object through proprioceptive channels is not exotic — it is a natural prediction. If concepts are grounded in body-based experience, and spatial reasoning operates through the body's coordinate system, then using the hands to generate a manipulable spatial model is the embodied cognition framework operating exactly as advertised.

Three converging lines of evidence from adjacent research substantiate the plausibility of PSC.

Gesture as spatial cognition. Susan Goldin-Meadow's research program has demonstrated that hand gestures are not merely communicative decoration but constitutive elements of spatial cognition. People gesture even when no one can see them. Gestures reveal implicit spatial knowledge before it can be verbalized — children solving spatial problems gesture correct solutions before producing correct verbal answers (Goldin-Meadow, 2003, Hearing Gesture, Harvard University Press). Wesp et al. (2001, American Journal of Psychology) showed that gesturing helps maintain spatial imagery, while Ping and Goldin-Meadow (2010, Cognitive Science) found that gesturing about spatially absent objects frees cognitive resources. This establishes that the hands can serve as a spatial-cognitive interface — but gesture research studies hand movements as supplements to visual-spatial imagery, not as a primary construction modality in the absence of visual imagery.

Proprioceptive deprivation reveals specificity. Blouin et al. (2018, Frontiers in Psychology, DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01322) studied two extremely rare individuals chronically deprived of proprioception (GL and IW) and found that proprioception specifically influences the time needed to use spatial representations, while visuospatial abilities influence accuracy. Loss of proprioception particularly impaired the egocentric reference frame — the body-centered coordinate system for spatial reasoning. This directly demonstrates that proprioception contributes to spatial model construction and is not redundant with visual-spatial processing.

Haptic mental rotation in blindness. In the landmark 1976 study by Marmor and Zaback (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance), congenitally blind individuals who have never had any visual experience showed the classic linear increase in reaction time with angular disparity during haptic mental rotation. Tivadar et al. (2020, NPJ Science of Learning) demonstrated that blind and visually-impaired participants performed genuine mental rotation of digitally-rendered haptic objects on a tablet. These studies prove that spatial transformation operations can be driven entirely through non-visual channels — but they involve objects that are being physically touched, not conceptual objects projected into proprioceptive space.

The existence of neurons in premotor and posterior parietal cortex that are literally "anchored" to the hand (Graziano, 1999, Neuron) — with receptive fields that move when the hand moves — provides a neural mechanism for hand-position-based spatial representation. These bimodal neurons integrate visual and proprioceptive information about hand position, creating a body-centered spatial coordinate system. In the absence of visual input, these neurons would operate purely on proprioceptive coordinates — which is precisely the condition under which PSC occurs.

Why closing the eyes unlocks proprioceptive spatial processing

The phenomenon whereby PSC requires eye closure has a robust scientific explanation rooted in the visual capture effect and Bayesian multisensory integration.

Rock and Victor's classic 1964 Science paper demonstrated that when visual and tactile information conflict, vision overwhelmingly dominates the integrated percept — participants reported that objects "felt" like their visual images even when haptic information was veridical and visual information was distorted through lenses. Ernst and Banks (2002, Nature, DOI: 10.1038/415429a) provided the mechanistic explanation: the brain combines visual and haptic information via maximum-likelihood estimation, weighting each modality by its reliability (inverse variance). Vision dominates because visual estimates typically have lower variance than proprioceptive estimates for spatial tasks. The critical prediction: removing visual input forces the system to rely 100% on proprioceptive estimates, eliminating any visual bias.

The interference goes beyond mere bias. Wasaka and Kakigi (2012, NeuroImage) demonstrated using neuroimaging that visual-proprioceptive discordance actively inhibits primary somatosensory cortex while enhancing secondary somatosensory cortex — providing neural evidence that visual conflict directly suppresses proprioceptive cortical processing. Holmes, Crozier, and Spence (2004, Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience) showed that visual capture of arm position through mirror illusions actively impaired reaching performance, and Scheidt et al. (2014, Journal of Neurophysiology) found motor adaptation was overwhelmingly dominated by visual feedback. The rubber hand illusion literature (Botvinick & Cohen, 1998, Nature, DOI: 10.1038/35784) demonstrates that vision can completely overwrite proprioceptive position sense — the brain relocates the felt position of one's own hand toward a visible rubber hand.

Closing the eyes therefore accomplishes several things simultaneously for PSC:

  • Eliminates visual dominance/bias that would distort proprioceptive spatial representation
  • Removes the active suppression of somatosensory cortex caused by visual-proprioceptive conflict
  • Forces the Bayesian integration system to upweight proprioceptive signals to 100%
  • Frees attentional resources previously devoted to the dominant visual modality
  • Enables access to proprioceptive spatial representations that are normally masked by visual capture

For someone with aphantasia, this has an additional implication. In typical imagers, closing the eyes shifts spatial processing from external visual input to internal visual imagery — the simulation engine takes over. In aphantasia, closing the eyes shifts processing to whatever non-visual spatial system is available. PSC may represent the specific modality that fills this role: proprioceptive construction of spatial models in the absence of both external vision and internal visual simulation.

Clinical practice has long recognized the principle that eye closure enhances proprioceptive processing. The Romberg test — a standard neurological assessment — specifically uses eye closure to challenge proprioceptive and vestibular processing. Balance rehabilitation programs use eyes-closed training to strengthen proprioceptive circuits. The evidence converges: vision does not merely supplement proprioception — it actively suppresses and overrides it, making eye closure a prerequisite for accessing proprioceptive spatial representations at full fidelity.

Meditative stillness amplifies the body's spatial sense

The observation that PSC requires a "still mind" aligns with research connecting contemplative practices to enhanced proprioceptive and interoceptive processing. Lazar et al. (2005, NeuroReport, DOI: 10.1097/01.wnr.0000186598.66243.19) found that experienced Insight meditators had increased cortical thickness in somatosensory cortex compared to matched controls — directly suggesting enhanced proprioceptive/tactile processing capacity.

The neural mechanism involves two complementary processes. Farb, Segal, and Anderson (2007, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience) identified two dissociable neural modes of self-reference: a cortical midline "narrative focus" network (overlapping with the default mode network) active during self-referential thinking, and an interoceptive/experiential network active during present-moment body-focused attention. MBSR training strengthened the experiential/interoceptive network while reducing default narrative processing. In a subsequent study (Farb et al., 2013, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience), they showed that mindfulness training simultaneously reduced dorsomedial prefrontal cortex recruitment and strengthened its negative connectivity with insular cortex — meaning meditation both enhances interoceptive processing and reduces narrative interference with body sensing.

Kerr et al. (2013, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience) demonstrated that meditators showed greater alpha rhythm modulation over somatosensory cortex during a body-attention task, interpreted as enhanced attentional control over proprioceptive and somatosensory signals. Brewer et al. (2011, PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1112029108) showed the default mode network was relatively deactivated in experienced meditators across all meditation types.

For PSC specifically, the "still mind" requirement likely reflects the need to suppress default mode network activity — the narrative, self-referential processing that would otherwise compete for attentional resources. PSC appears to require the same attentional reallocation that meditation achieves: reducing narrative cognition to free bandwidth for body-based spatial processing. The difference is that in PSC, the freed resources are directed not toward passive body awareness (as in body scan meditation) but toward active spatial construction — using the quieted proprioceptive channel as a generative instrument.

An important caveat from meta-analytic evidence (Bornemann & Singer, 2019, Scientific Reports): while meditators consistently report enhanced subjective body awareness, objective measures of proprioceptive accuracy yield mixed results. The enhancement may operate more through attentional allocation and reduced cognitive interference than through raw signal improvement. For PSC, this suggests the "still mind" condition may not improve proprioceptive resolution per se, but rather removes the noise that prevents proprioceptive spatial signals from being used constructively.

The parietal cortex as a modality-independent spatial processor

The neural architecture that would support PSC is increasingly well-characterized. The posterior parietal cortex — particularly the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and superior parietal lobule (SPL) — functions as a supramodal spatial processing hub. Bonino et al. (2015, Neuropsychologia, DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.01.004) demonstrated that both sighted and congenitally blind individuals activated intraparietal and superior parietal regions during spatial imagery tasks, establishing that spatial imagery has a sensory-independent functional architecture that does not require visual experience.

Guillot et al. (2009, Human Brain Mapping, DOI: 10.1002/hbm.20658) provided the first direct fMRI comparison of visual and kinesthetic imagery, revealing clearly dissociated networks. Visual imagery activated occipital cortex and the superior parietal lobule (BA 5-7), while kinesthetic imagery activated motor-associated structures (putamen, cerebellum), inferior prefrontal cortex (BA 44), and the inferior parietal lobule — including the supramarginal gyrus (SMG). A 2025 PNAS study (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2421032122) characterized representations in the left supramarginal gyrus as kinesthetic/somatosensory rather than motor, while Ben-Shabat et al. (2015, Frontiers in Neurology, DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2015.00248) found the right SMG serves as a high-order proprioceptive processing hub with rightward lateralization regardless of which wrist was stimulated.

Schmidt and Blankenburg (2019, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2019.00010) demonstrated that primary somatosensory cortex (SI) is somatotopically recruited during tactile imagery — imagining touch on the hand activates hand regions of SI — confirming that the sensory-recruitment principle extends to the somatosensory system. Kaas et al. (2019, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience) showed reliable single-trial decoding of somatosensory imagery from S1 activation patterns at 7T fMRI.

Critically, proprioceptive spatial processing can occur with active suppression of visual cortex. Smith and Bhatt (2014, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience) documented strong bilateral deactivation of primary visual cortex (lingual gyrus and cuneus) during a predominantly kinesthetic extra-corporeal experience, with activation in the left SMA and supramarginal gyrus. Collignon et al. (2011, Neuron) found that the right middle occipital gyrus retains spatial processing specialization even in early blind individuals, responding to spatial information from auditory and tactile modalities.

Predicted neural signature of PSC. Based on the evidence, PSC would be expected to involve: (1) activation of posterior parietal cortex (IPS, SPL) for spatial transformation operations; (2) activation of supramarginal gyrus for proprioceptive-spatial integration; (3) somatotopic recruitment of hand regions in primary somatosensory cortex; (4) deactivation of primary visual cortex; (5) suppression of default mode network/midline structures; and (6) enhanced coupling between somatosensory cortex and parietal spatial processing regions. This signature would be distinguishable from kinesthetic imagery (which co-activates motor structures for action simulation) and from visual spatial imagery (which recruits occipital cortex). No study has specifically tested for this pattern because PSC has not been identified as a distinct target for investigation.

Defining proprioceptive spatial construction

Drawing together the evidence from all six preceding domains, we can now formally characterize PSC as a distinct cognitive phenomenon:

Proprioceptive spatial construction (PSC) is the generation, manipulation, and navigation of spatial models of external objects or concepts using the body's proprioceptive system as the primary representational medium, in the absence of visual imagery and without requiring prior tactile experience of the represented object.

Core features: - Generative, not reproductive. Unlike haptic imagery (replaying stored touch experiences) or motor imagery (rehearsing practiced actions), PSC creates novel spatial representations from conceptual knowledge projected into proprioceptive coordinate space. - Object-directed, not body-directed. Unlike proprioceptive imagery as currently defined (imagining one's own body at a different position), PSC uses the body as an instrument to represent something other than itself. - Manipulable. The constructed spatial model supports active operations — navigation along surfaces, disassembly, rotation, zooming in on substructures — driven by ongoing proprioceptive input from the hands. - Requires visual suppression. Eye closure is a prerequisite, consistent with the visual capture literature showing that vision actively suppresses and overrides proprioceptive spatial representations. - Requires cognitive stillness. A quiet or meditative cognitive state is necessary, consistent with the need to suppress default mode network activity that would compete with proprioceptive spatial signals. - Modality-specific. PSC is not a verbal, semantic, or abstract-spatial process dressed up in proprioceptive clothing. It involves genuine spatial structure — positions, surfaces, volumes, spatial relationships — represented through the body's position-sensing apparatus.

Relationship to existing constructs: - PSC shares with kinesthetic imagery the use of proprioceptive channels, but KI is about simulating one's own movements, while PSC constructs external spatial models. - PSC shares with haptic imagery the involvement of hand-based spatial representation, but haptic imagery replays stored touch experiences, while PSC generates novel spatial structures from conceptual knowledge. - PSC shares with spatial imagery (as measured by the OSIQ Spatial subscale) the representation of spatial relationships, but spatial imagery in the literature is typically assumed to be either visual or abstract, not specifically proprioceptive. - PSC may represent the specific mechanism underlying the "sensorimotor strategy" that aphantasia researchers have identified as a preferred alternative to visual imagery, but have not investigated as a spatial construction modality in its own right.

Significance for aphantasia research. The consistent finding that aphantasics prefer sensorimotor and spatial strategies over verbal ones — and perform equivalently to visual imagers on spatial tasks — raises a question the literature has not adequately pursued: what exactly is the sensorimotor strategy doing? PSC may be the answer. Rather than a vague "compensatory" mechanism, it may be a fully realized spatial construction modality that operates through the body's position-sensing system, accessing the same supramodal parietal spatial processing architecture that visual imagery uses, but through a different input channel. The hands do not merely execute spatial plans conceived elsewhere — in PSC, they think spatially in their own right.