Full body illusion and cognition: A systematic review of the literature

Abstract

In recent years, an increasing number of studies employed the full body illusion paradigm (i.e., the experimentally induced illusory ownership over a fake/virtual body) to investigate the role of body ownership in higher-level cognition. However, to date, no systematic review of this topic is present. To fill this gap, here we identified 102 papers classifiable in 4 cognitive domains and 12 subdomains. Overall, they manipulated the identity of the fake body, and/or its spatial perspective, and/or the kind of multisensory stimulation, and/or its spatiotemporal congruency. The effects were measured through implicit and/or explicit indices. In summary, results showed that participants’ behavior shifted away from the self and/or towards that of the embodied fake/virtual body. The findings have been interpreted within various exploratory frameworks, with the most common being the Proteus effect, the cortical body matrix and the inverse model of motor control. Future studies should focus on building a unitary theoretical explanation of the effects, gaining solid neural evidence, creating standard experimental procedures, and exploring the practical applications.