Abstract
Neurological evidence suggests that disturbed vestibular processing may play a key role in triggering out-of-body experiences (OBEs). Little is known about the brain mechanisms during such pathological conditions, despite recent experimental evidence that the scientific study of such experiences may facilitate the development of neurobiological models of a crucial aspect of self-consciousness: embodied self-location. Here we apply Bayesian modeling to vestibular processing and show that OBEs and the reported illusory changes of self-location and translation can be explained as the result of a mislead Bayesian inference, in the sense that ambiguous bottom-up signals from the vestibular otholiths in the supine body position are integrated with a top-down prior for the upright body position, which we measure during natural head movements. Our findings have relevance for self-location and translation under normal conditions and suggest novel ways to induce and study experimentally both aspects of bodily self-consciousness in healthy subjects.
Highlights
Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are illusions, where people experience themselves as being located outside their physical body and often report sensations of flying and to see the world from an elevated perspective
We apply Bayesian modeling to vestibular processing and show that OBEs and the reported illusory changes of self-location and translation can be explained as the result of a mislead Bayesian inference, in the sense that ambiguous bottom-up signals from the vestibular otholiths in the supine body position are integrated with a top-down prior for the upright body position, which we measure during natural head movements
We propose that OBEs and associated illusory changes in self-location can be explained as the result of a mislead Bayesian inference, in the sense that the ambiguous bottomup signals from the vestibular otholiths in the supine body position are integrated with a top-down prior for the upright body position, which is not appropriate for the current body position
Summary
Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are illusions, where people experience themselves as being located outside their physical body (disembodied self-location) and often report sensations of flying and to see the world from an elevated perspective Investigating such neurological conditions is a promising approach to study the neuronal basis of the bodily self and might facilitate the development of neurobiological models of bodily self-consciousness (Ehrsson, 2007; Lenggenhager et al, 2007; Metzinger, 2008; Vogeley and Fink, 2003; Vogeley et al, 2004). For almost every sensory system, the bottom-up signals from the sensory periphery are ambiguous and need to be disambiguated based on previous experience (see Poggio et al, 1985 for a prominent example in vision). Topdown signals, which could change more rapidly than less adaptive processes closer to the sensory periphery, are a possible mechanism for the latter kind of computation
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