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Observing the Transformation of Bodily Self-consciousness in the Squeeze-machine Experiment
Published on: March 8, 2019
Spatial aspects of bodily self-consciousness
Bigna Lenggenhager1, Michael Mouthon, Olaf Blanke
1Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Brain-Mind Institute, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Consciousness and Cognition
|December 26, 2008
Summary
This study shows that the sense of self-location shifts towards where touch is seen, even when visual and body cues differ. This finding helps explain phenomena like out-of-body experiences.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Virtual Reality
Background:
- Normally, visual, somatosensory, and perspectival cues align to define self-location.
- Virtual reality studies show self-location shifts towards visual-tactile events when cues are dissociated.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a novel, repeatable, implicit measure of self-location.
- To investigate illusory self-location and associated phenomena in a lying position.
- To compare and extend previous self-location measurement protocols.
Main Methods:
- Developed a novel, implicit measure for self-location.
- Investigated illusory self-location in a lying body position.
- Utilized virtual reality techniques to dissociate sensory cues.
Main Results:
- Confirmed that self-location is biased towards the location of seen touch.
- Observed predictable lowering or elevation of self-localization.
- Found that elevated self-localization was associated with sensations of floating, similar to out-of-body experiences.
Conclusions:
- The unitary and localized sense of self can be experimentally dissociated from visual perspective and body location.
- Findings are compatible with clinical observations of abnormal self-location, such as out-of-body experiences.
- The study provides a new method for measuring self-location and understanding its malleability.
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