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Can gaze-contingent mirror-feedback from unfamiliar faces alter self-recognition?
Alejandro J Estudillo1, Markus Bindemann1
1a School of Psychology , University of Kent , Canterbury , Kent , UK.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006)
|March 17, 2016
Summary
Human self-perception is complex. This study found that while onscreen face mimicry didn't change how people saw their own face, it did alter their sense of self and expectations of their own facial movements.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Self-Perception Research
Background:
- Understanding the self involves how individuals update internal representations.
- Self-face recognition and its underlying mechanisms are crucial in cognitive science.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how human observers update their internal representations of their own face.
- To examine the influence of gaze-contingent feedback on self-perception.
Main Methods:
- Development of a novel gaze-contingent paradigm with three conditions: congruent mimicry, incongruent gaze, and neutral static.
- Three experiments were conducted to assess perceptual self-representations and subjective reports of facial ownership.
Main Results:
- Onscreen face mimicry did not alter observers' perceptual self-representations.
- The paradigm influenced observers' subjective reports, leading to a sense of facial ownership.
- Participants expected their own eyes to move in accordance with the onscreen face's independent movements.
Conclusions:
- Gaze-contingent feedback can influence the sense of self and ownership over one's face.
- Findings suggest a dissociation between perceptual self-representation and subjective feelings of self-face connection.
- The study provides insights into the dynamic updating of self-representation in response to external stimuli.
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