The network of the subjective experience in embodiment phenomena

Active self-touch restores bodily proprioceptive spatial awareness following disruption by 'rubber hand illusion'

Bodily self-awareness relies on a constant integration of visual, tactile, proprioceptive, and motor signals. In the 'rubber hand illusion' (RHI), conflicting visuo-tactile stimuli lead to changes in self-awareness. It remains unclear whether other, somatic signals could compensate for the alterations in self-awareness caused by visual information about the body. Here, we used the RHI in combination with robot-mediated self-touch to systematically investigate the role of tactile, proprioceptive and motor signals in maintaining and restoring bodily self-awareness. Participants moved the handle of a leader robot with their right hand and simultaneously received corresponding tactile feedback on their left hand from a follower robot. This self-touch stimulation was performed either before or after the induction of a classical RHI. Across three experiments, active self-touch delivered after-but not before-the RHI, significantly reduced the proprioceptive drift caused by RHI, supporting a restorative role of active self-touch on bodily self-awareness. The effect was not present during involuntary self-touch. Unimodal control conditions confirmed that both tactile and motor components of self-touch were necessary to restore bodily self-awareness. We hypothesize that active self-touch transiently boosts the precision of proprioceptive representation of the touched body part, thus counteracting the visual capture effects that underlie the RHI.

Visuo-Spatial Working Memory and Mathematical Skills in Children: A Network Analysis Study

Visuo-spatial working memory is one of the main domain-general cognitive mechanisms underlying mathematical abilities and their development in children. However, if visuo-spatial working memory involves different processes and components, then the term 'mathematics' refers to a broad concept that includes multiple domains and skills. The aim of this present study was to investigate the relationship between different visuo-spatial working memory components and several mathematical abilities in a sample of third- to fifth-grade Italian children. To assess the relationships between different visuo-spatial working memory components and different mathematical abilities, we relied on Network Analysis (NA). Results indicate that some but not all visuo-spatial working memory components are associated with some mathematical abilities.

Look at me now! Enfacement illusion over computer-generated faces

According to embodied cognition research, one’s bodily self-perception can be illusory and temporarily shifted toward an external body. Similarly, the so-called “enfacement illusion” induced with a synchronous multisensory stimulation over the self-face and an external face can result in implicit and explicit changes in the bodily self. The present study aimed to verify (i) the possibility of eliciting an enfacement illusion over computer-generated faces and (ii) which multisensory stimulation condition was more effective. A total of 23 participants were asked to look at a gender-matched avatar in three synchronous experimental conditions and three asynchronous control conditions (one for each stimulation: visuotactile, visuomotor, and simple exposure). After each condition, participants were asked to complete a questionnaire assessing both the embodiment and the enfacement sensations to address different facets of the illusion. Results suggest a stronger effect of synchronous vs. asynchronous stimulation, and the difference was more pronounced for the embodiment items of the questionnaire. We also found a greater effect of visuotactile and visuomotor stimulations as compared to the simple exposure condition. These findings support the enfacement illusion as a new paradigm to investigate the ownership of different face identities and the specific role of visuotactile and visuomotor stimulations with virtual reality stimuli.