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Availability of synchronous information in an additional sensory modality does not enhance the full body illusion.

ABSTRACT: The Full body illusion (FBI) is an illusion in which participants experience a change in self-location to a body that is perceived from a third-person perspective. The FBI is usually induced through experimenter generated stroking but can also be induced through self-generated stroking. In four experiments (three preregistered) we compared a self-generated stroking induction condition to a self-generated movement condition, where the only difference between conditions was the presence or absence of touch. We investigated whether the illusion reflects an all-or-nothing phenomenon or whether the illusion is influenced by the availability of synchronous information in an additional sensory modality. As a prerequisite, we investigated whether the FBI can also be induced using just self-generated movement in the absence of synchronous touch. Illusion strength was measured through illusion statements. Participants reported an equally strong illusion for both induction methods in Experiments 1, 2 and 3. In the third experiment, we additionally measured the time of illusion onset. Like the illusion strength measures, the illusion onset times did not differ between the two induction methods. In the fourth experiment participants only completed the self-generated movement condition. Again, they reported the FBI, demonstrating that the findings of Experiments 1, 2 and 3 were not dependent on the presence of a condition that used synchronous touch. Together, these findings confirm the hypothesis that the FBI is an all-or-nothing phenomenon and that adding additional multisensory synchronicity does not help to enhance the strength, onset time or onset probability of the illusion.

SUBMITTER: Swinkels LMJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8357710 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Previous research has shown that it is possible to use multisensory stimulation to induce the perceptual illusion of owning supernumerary limbs, such as two right arms. However, it remains unclear whether the coherent feeling of owning a full-body may be duplicated in the same manner and whether such a dual full-body illusion could be used to split the unitary sense of self-location into two. Here, we examined whether healthy human participants can experience simultaneous ownership of two full-bodies, located either close in parallel or in two separate spatial locations. A previously described full-body illusion, based on visuo-tactile stimulation of an artificial body viewed from the first-person perspective (1PP) via head-mounted displays, was adapted to a dual-body setting and quantified in five experiments using questionnaires, a behavioural self-location task and threat-evoked skin conductance responses. The results of experiments 1-3 showed that synchronous visuo-tactile stimulation of two bodies viewed from the 1PP lying in parallel next to each other induced a significant illusion of dual full-body ownership. In experiment 4, we failed to find support for our working hypothesis that splitting the visual scene into two, so that each of the two illusory bodies was placed in distinct spatial environments, would lead to dual self-location. In a final exploratory experiment (no. 5), we found preliminary support for an illusion of dual self-location and dual body ownership by using dynamic changes between the 1PPs of two artificial bodies and/or a common third-person perspective in the ceiling of the testing room. These findings suggest that healthy people, under certain conditions of multisensory perceptual ambiguity, may experience dual body ownership and dual self-location. These findings suggest that the coherent sense of the bodily self located at a single place in space is the result of an active and dynamic perceptual integration process.

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Availability of synchronous information in an additional sensory modality does not enhance the full body illusion.

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