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Video ergo sum: manipulating bodily self-consciousness.
Bigna Lenggenhager1, Tej Tadi, Thomas Metzinger
1Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Station 15, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Science (New York, N.Y.)
|August 25, 2007
Summary
Researchers used virtual reality to disrupt the sense of self, making participants feel a virtual body was their own. This study explores the neurological basis of bodily self-consciousness and spatial unity.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Virtual Reality Research
Background:
- The conscious self is typically experienced within bodily limits.
- Neurological conditions like out-of-body experiences can disrupt bodily self-consciousness.
- Understanding the spatial unity of the self is crucial in neuroscience.
Purpose of the Study:
- To experimentally investigate the breakdown of spatial unity and bodily self-consciousness.
- To explore the role of multisensory integration in self-perception.
- To model disturbances of self-consciousness using virtual reality.
Main Methods:
- Utilized virtual reality (VR) to create conflicting visual-somatosensory input.
- Induce multisensory conflict to disrupt the spatial unity between the self and the body.
- Measured subjective experiences of body ownership and self-location.
Main Results:
- Participants reported feeling ownership of a virtual body during multisensory conflict.
- Self-location was mislocalized towards the virtual body, outside physical bodily borders.
- Demonstrated the ability to experimentally disrupt and study spatial unity.
Conclusions:
- Spatial unity and bodily self-consciousness are malleable and experimentally accessible.
- These phenomena rely on the multisensory and cognitive processing of bodily information.
- Findings provide insights into the neural mechanisms underlying self-consciousness.
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