  The human self has many facets: there is the physical body and then there are
different concepts or representations supported by processes in the brain such
as the ecological, social, temporal, conceptual, and experiential self. The
mechanisms of operation and formation of the self are, however, largely
unknown. The basis is constituted by the ecological or sensorimotor self that
deals with the configuration of the body in space and its action possibilities.
This self is prereflective, prelinguistic, and initially perhaps even largely
independent of visual inputs. Instead, somatosensory (tactile and
proprioceptive) information both before and after birth may play a key part. In
this paper, we propose that self-touch experience may be a fundamental
mechanisms to bootstrap the formation of the sensorimotor self and perhaps even
beyond. We will investigate this from the perspectives of phenomenology,
developmental psychology, and neuroscience. In light of the evidence from fetus
and infant development, we will speculate about the possible mechanisms that
may drive the formation of first body representations drawing on self-touch
experience.
