Abstract
Recent studies have shown that human perception of body ownership is highly malleable. A well-known example is the rubber hand illusion (RHI) wherein ownership over a dummy hand is experienced, and is generally believed to require synchronized stroking of real and dummy hands. Our goal was to elucidate the computational principles governing this phenomenon. We adopted the Bayesian causal inference model of multisensory perception and applied it to visual, proprioceptive, and tactile stimuli. The model reproduced the RHI, predicted that it can occur without tactile stimulation, and that synchronous stroking would enhance it. Various measures of ownership across two experiments confirmed the predictions: a large percentage of individuals experienced the illusion in the absence of any tactile stimulation, and synchronous stroking strengthened the illusion. Altogether, these findings suggest that perception of body ownership is governed by Bayesian causal inference—i.e., the same rule that appears to govern the perception of outside world.
Highlights
Our sense of ownership of our body and body parts appears inherent, stable, and immutable
The model can account for the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI)
When assessing the effect of distance between the rubber hand and the real hand on the illusion, the inference of a common cause becomes increasingly less probable, and the illusion becomes increasingly weaker, as the distance between the two is increased, and the illusion starts to vanish as the distance approaches 30cm (Fig. 3)
Summary
Our sense of ownership of our body and body parts appears inherent, stable, and immutable. Recent research has shown an incredible degree of malleability in our sense of body ownership and perception. While the protocols and brain regions involved in these alterations of body ownership have been investigated by recent studies, the governing rules and computational mechanisms of body ownership remain poorly understood [7,8,9]. The goal of this study was to gain insight into the principles that govern body ownership in humans. To this end, we used a well-established and extensively studied body-ownership illusion known as Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI)
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