Transcending the Self in Immersive Virtual Reality

Abstract

Cognitive neuroscientists have discovered through various experiments that our body representation is surprisingly flexible. Multisensory body illusions work well in immersive virtual reality, and recent findings suggest that they offer both a powerful tool for neuroscience and a new path for future exploration. Because virtual reality is entirely programmed, the form or type of virtual body can be quite different from the participant's actual body, which can impact perception, attitudes, and behavior. A dramatic example of this is when adults inhabiting a virtual child's body overestimate the size of objects and demonstrate implicit attitude and behavioral changes that seem more child-like, but in an adult body the same size as that of a child, they do not exhibit such changes. Here we review the emerging field of body representation and its implications for a new, powerful virtual reality paradigm.