Abstract
A central feature of our consciousness is the experience of the self as a unified entity residing in a physical body, termed bodily self-consciousness. This phenomenon includes aspects such as the sense of owning a body (also known as body ownership) and has been suggested to arise from the integration of sensory signals from the body. Several studies have shown that temporally synchronous tactile stimulation of the real body and visual stimulation of a fake or virtual body can induce changes in bodily self-consciousness, typically resulting in a sense of illusory ownership over the fake body. The present study assessed the effect of anatomical congruency of visuo-tactile stimulation on bodily self-consciousness. A virtual body was presented and temporally synchronous visuo-tactile stroking was applied simultaneously to the participants' body and to the virtual body. We manipulated the anatomical locations of the visuo-tactile stroking (i.e., on the back, on the leg), resulting in congruent stroking (stroking was felt and seen on the back or the leg) or incongruent stroking (i.e., stroking was felt on the leg and seen on the back). We measured self-identification with the virtual body and self-location as well as skin temperature. Illusory self-identification with the avatar as well as changes in self-location were experienced in the congruent stroking conditions. Participants showed a decrease in skin temperature across several body locations during congruent stimulation. These data establish that the full-body illusion (FBI) alters bodily self-consciousness and instigates widespread physiological changes in the participant's body.
Highlights
Since William James’s characterization of self-consciousness in the 19th century (James, 1890/1950), the psychological “self ” has been the subject of much intrigue in the world of psychology, philosophy, and more recently, neuroscience
We investigated the following questions: Is anatomically congruent visuo-tactile stimulation necessary for the induction of the full-body illusion (FBI)? Would the induction of the FBI be accompanied with skin temperature reduction and will the temperature reduction be widespread or locally confined to the location of congruent visuo-tactile stroking as has been shown for the rubber hand illusion (RHI) (Moseley et al, 2008)? Participants were stroked by the robotic device on their back or leg while seeing anatomically congruent or incongruent visual www.frontiersin.org feedback
We predicted that the temperature change would show similar dynamics and would require some time for induction. This is in line with the findings of the Moseley et al (2008) paper showing that the temperature change evolved over several minutes in the RHI (Moseley et al, 2008) (Figure 1B). These findings suggest that the psychological feeling of illusory self-identification during the FBI may be linked to the increasing magnitude of a widespread cooling of the body
Summary
Since William James’s characterization of self-consciousness in the 19th century (James, 1890/1950), the psychological “self ” has been the subject of much intrigue in the world of psychology, philosophy, and more recently, neuroscience. Recent advances in virtual reality (VR) technologies have enabled the investigation of bodily self-consciousness by providing subjects with ambiguous multisensory information about the location and appearance of their own body (Serino et al, 2008; Salomon et al, 2009, 2012) This has made it possible to study three important aspects of bodily self-consciousness and how they relate to the processing of bodily signals: selfidentification with the body (the experience of owning a body), self-location (the experience of where I am in space), and firstperson perspective (the experience of from where I perceive) (Blanke, 2012; Pfeiffer et al, 2013).
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