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O'Kane SH, Chancel M, Ehrsson HH. Hierarchical and dynamic relationships between body part ownership and full-body ownership. Cognition 2024; 246:105697. [PMID: 38364444 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105697] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2023] [Revised: 12/12/2023] [Accepted: 12/13/2023] [Indexed: 02/18/2024]
Abstract
What is the relationship between experiencing individual body parts and the whole body as one's own? We theorised that body part ownership is driven primarily by the perceptual binding of visual and somatosensory signals from specific body parts, whereas full-body ownership depends on a more global binding process based on multisensory information from several body segments. To examine this hypothesis, we used a bodily illusion and asked participants to rate illusory changes in ownership over five different parts of a mannequin's body and the mannequin as a whole, while we manipulated the synchrony or asynchrony of visual and tactile stimuli delivered to three different body parts. We found that body part ownership was driven primarily by local visuotactile synchrony and could be experienced relatively independently of full-body ownership. Full-body ownership depended on the number of synchronously stimulated parts in a nonlinear manner, with the strongest full-body ownership illusion occurring when all parts received synchronous stimulation. Additionally, full-body ownership influenced body part ownership for nonstimulated body parts, and skin conductance responses provided physiological evidence supporting an interaction between body part and full-body ownership. We conclude that body part and full-body ownership correspond to different processes and propose a hierarchical probabilistic model to explain the relationship between part and whole in the context of multisensory awareness of one's own body.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sophie H O'Kane
- Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
| | - Marie Chancel
- Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - H Henrik Ehrsson
- Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
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2
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Crucianelli L, Reader AT, Ehrsson HH. Subcortical contributions to the sense of body ownership. Brain 2024; 147:390-405. [PMID: 37847057 PMCID: PMC10834261 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awad359] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/20/2023] [Revised: 09/01/2023] [Accepted: 10/03/2023] [Indexed: 10/18/2023] Open
Abstract
The sense of body ownership (i.e. the feeling that our body or its parts belong to us) plays a key role in bodily self-consciousness and is believed to stem from multisensory integration. Experimental paradigms such as the rubber hand illusion have been developed to allow the controlled manipulation of body ownership in laboratory settings, providing effective tools for investigating malleability in the sense of body ownership and the boundaries that distinguish self from other. Neuroimaging studies of body ownership converge on the involvement of several cortical regions, including the premotor cortex and posterior parietal cortex. However, relatively less attention has been paid to subcortical structures that may also contribute to body ownership perception, such as the cerebellum and putamen. Here, on the basis of neuroimaging and neuropsychological observations, we provide an overview of relevant subcortical regions and consider their potential role in generating and maintaining a sense of ownership over the body. We also suggest novel avenues for future research targeting the role of subcortical regions in making sense of the body as our own.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura Crucianelli
- Department of Biological and Experimental Psychology, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4DQ, UK
- Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm 171 65, Sweden
| | - Arran T Reader
- Department of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK
| | - H Henrik Ehrsson
- Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm 171 65, Sweden
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3
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Iriye H, Chancel M, Ehrsson HH. Sense of own body shapes neural processes of memory encoding and reinstatement. Cereb Cortex 2024; 34:bhad443. [PMID: 38012107 PMCID: PMC10793569 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhad443] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2023] [Accepted: 10/23/2023] [Indexed: 11/29/2023] Open
Abstract
How is the fundamental sense of one's body, a basic aspect of selfhood, incorporated into memories for events? Disrupting bodily self-awareness during encoding impairs functioning of the left posterior hippocampus during retrieval, which implies weakened encoding. However, how changes in bodily self-awareness influence neural encoding is unknown. We investigated how the sense of body ownership, a core aspect of the bodily self, impacts encoding in the left posterior hippocampus and additional core memory regions including the angular gyrus. Furthermore, we assessed the degree to which memories are reinstated according to body ownership during encoding and vividness during retrieval as a measure of memory strength. We immersed participants in naturalistic scenes where events unfolded while we manipulated feelings of body ownership with a full-body-illusion during functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. One week later, participants retrieved memories for the videos during functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. A whole brain analysis revealed that patterns of activity in regions including the right hippocampus and angular gyrus distinguished between events encoded with strong versus weak body ownership. A planned region-of-interest analysis showed that patterns of activity in the left posterior hippocampus specifically could predict body ownership during memory encoding. Using the wider network of regions sensitive to body ownership during encoding and the left posterior hippocampus as separate regions-of-interest, we observed that patterns of activity present at encoding were reinstated more during the retrieval of events encoded with strong body ownership and high memory vividness. Our results demonstrate how the sense of physical self is bound within an event during encoding, which facilitates reactivation of a memory trace during retrieval.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heather Iriye
- Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm SE 171-77, Sweden
| | - Marie Chancel
- Université Grenoble Alpes, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, Grenoble 38000, France
| | - Henrik H Ehrsson
- Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm SE 171-77, Sweden
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Moon HJ, Wu HP, De Falco E, Blanke O. Physical Body Orientation Impacts Virtual Navigation Experience and Performance. eNeuro 2023; 10:ENEURO.0218-23.2023. [PMID: 37932043 PMCID: PMC10683533 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0218-23.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2023] [Revised: 09/29/2023] [Accepted: 10/06/2023] [Indexed: 11/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Most human navigation studies in MRI rely on virtual navigation. However, the necessary supine position in MRI makes it fundamentally different from daily ecological navigation. Nonetheless, until now, no study has assessed whether differences in physical body orientation (BO) affect participants' experienced BO during virtual navigation. Here, combining an immersive virtual reality navigation task with subjective BO measures and implicit behavioral measures, we demonstrate that physical BO (either standing or supine) modulates experienced BO. Also, we show that standing upright BO is preferred during spatial navigation: participants were more likely to experience a standing BO and were better at spatial navigation when standing upright. Importantly, we report that showing a supine virtual agent reduces the conflict between the preferred BO and physical supine BO. Our study provides critical, but missing, information regarding experienced BO during virtual navigation, which should be considered cautiously when designing navigation studies, especially in MRI.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hyuk-June Moon
- Neuro-X Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), CH-1202 Geneva, Switzerland
- Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
- Bionics Research Center, Biomedical Research Division, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul 02792, South Korea
| | - Hsin-Ping Wu
- Neuro-X Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), CH-1202 Geneva, Switzerland
- Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Emanuela De Falco
- Neuro-X Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), CH-1202 Geneva, Switzerland
- Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Olaf Blanke
- Neuro-X Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), CH-1202 Geneva, Switzerland
- Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University Hospital Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
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Penaud S, Yeh D, Gaston-Bellegarde A, Piolino P. The role of bodily self-consciousness in episodic memory of naturalistic events: an immersive virtual reality study. Sci Rep 2023; 13:17013. [PMID: 37813899 PMCID: PMC10562507 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-43823-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2023] [Accepted: 09/28/2023] [Indexed: 10/11/2023] Open
Abstract
Recent studies suggest that the human body plays a critical role in episodic memory. Still, the precise relationship between bodily self-consciousness (BSC) and memory formation of specific events, especially in real-life contexts, remains a topic of ongoing research. The present study investigated the relationship between BSC and episodic memory (EM) using immersive virtual reality (VR) technology. Participants were immersed in an urban environment with naturalistic events, while their visuomotor feedback was manipulated in three within-subjects conditions: Synchronous, Asynchronous, and No-body. Our results show that asynchronous visuomotor feedback and not seeing one's body, compared to synchronous feedback, decrease the sense of self-identification, self-location and agency, and sense of presence. Moreover, navigating in the Asynchronous condition had a detrimental impact on incidental event memory, perceptual details, contextual association, subjective sense of remembering, and memory consolidation. In contrast, participants in the No-Body condition were only impaired in egocentric spatial memory and the sense of remembering at ten-day delay. We discuss these findings in relation to the role of bodily self-representation in space during event memory encoding. This study sheds light on the complex interplay between BSC, sense of presence, and episodic memory processes, and strengthens the potential of embodiment and VR technology in studying and enhancing human cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sylvain Penaud
- Université Paris Cité, Laboratoire Mémoire, Cerveau & Cognition (LMC2 UR 7536), Institut de Psychologie, 71 Ave Édouard Vaillant, 92100, Boulogne-Billancourt, France.
| | - Delphine Yeh
- Université Paris Cité, Laboratoire Mémoire, Cerveau & Cognition (LMC2 UR 7536), Institut de Psychologie, 71 Ave Édouard Vaillant, 92100, Boulogne-Billancourt, France
| | - Alexandre Gaston-Bellegarde
- Université Paris Cité, Laboratoire Mémoire, Cerveau & Cognition (LMC2 UR 7536), Institut de Psychologie, 71 Ave Édouard Vaillant, 92100, Boulogne-Billancourt, France
| | - Pascale Piolino
- Université Paris Cité, Laboratoire Mémoire, Cerveau & Cognition (LMC2 UR 7536), Institut de Psychologie, 71 Ave Édouard Vaillant, 92100, Boulogne-Billancourt, France.
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Tuena C, Zeng L, Hashmi M, Riva G. VRBodyMem: A Virtual Full-Body Illusion for the Study of Episodic Memory. CYBERPSYCHOLOGY, BEHAVIOR AND SOCIAL NETWORKING 2023; 26:724-726. [PMID: 37358797 DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2023.29287.ceu] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/27/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Cosimo Tuena
- Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Laboratory, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy
| | - Ling Zeng
- Universidade Lusofona de Humanidades e Technologias-ULHT, Lisbon, Portugal
- Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
| | - Maria Hashmi
- Universidade Lusofona de Humanidades e Technologias-ULHT, Lisbon, Portugal
- Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Giuseppe Riva
- Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Laboratory, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy
- Humane Technology Laboratory, Catholic University of Milan, Milan, Italy
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Pyasik M, Ciorli T, Pia L. Full body illusion and cognition: A systematic review of the literature. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2022; 143:104926. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104926] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2022] [Revised: 10/20/2022] [Accepted: 10/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
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Preuss Mattsson N, Coppi S, Chancel M, Ehrsson HH. Combination of visuo-tactile and visuo-vestibular correlations in illusory body ownership and self-motion sensations. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0277080. [PMID: 36378668 PMCID: PMC9665377 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277080] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2022] [Accepted: 10/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous studies have shown that illusory ownership over a mannequin's body can be induced through synchronous visuo-tactile stimulation as well as through synchronous visuo-vestibular stimulation. The current study aimed to elucidate how three-way combinations of correlated visual, tactile and vestibular signals contribute to the senses of body ownership and self-motion. Visuo-tactile temporal congruence was manipulated by touching the mannequin's body and the participant's unseen real body on the trunk with a small object either synchronously or asynchronously. Visuo-vestibular temporal congruence was manipulated by synchronous or asynchronous presentation of a visual motion cue (the background rotating around the mannequin in one direction) and galvanic stimulation of the vestibular nerve generating a rotation sensation (in the same direction). The illusory experiences were quantified using a questionnaire; threat-evoked skin-conductance responses (SCRs) provided complementary indirect physiological evidence for the illusion. Ratings on the illusion questionnaire statement showed significant main effects of synchronous visuo-vestibular and synchronous visuo-tactile stimulations, suggesting that both of these pairs of bimodal correlations contribute to the ownership illusion. Interestingly, visuo-tactile synchrony dominated because synchronous visuo-tactile stimulation combined with asynchronous visuo-vestibular stimulation elicited a body ownership illusion of similar strength as when both bimodal combinations were synchronous. Moreover, both visuo-tactile and visuo-vestibular synchrony were associated with enhanced self-motion perception; self-motion sensations were even triggered when visuo-tactile synchrony was combined with visuo-vestibular asynchrony, suggesting that ownership enhanced the relevance of visual information as a self-motion cue. Finally, the SCR results suggest that synchronous stimulation of either modality pair led to a stronger illusion compared to the asynchronous conditions. Collectively, the results suggest that visuo-tactile temporal correlations have a stronger influence on body ownership than visuo-vestibular correlations and that ownership boosts self-motion perception. We present a Bayesian causal inference model that can explain how visuo-vestibular and visuo-tactile information are combined in multisensory own-body perception.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sara Coppi
- Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Marie Chancel
- Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
- University Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, LPNC, Grenoble, France
| | - H. Henrik Ehrsson
- Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
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Shin Y, Lim J, Kim Y, Seo DG, Ihm J. Effects of virtual body-representation on motor skill learning. Sci Rep 2022; 12:15283. [PMID: 36088480 PMCID: PMC9464243 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-19514-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2022] [Accepted: 08/30/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Motor learning is often hindered or facilitated by visual information from one's body and its movement. However, it is unclear whether visual representation of the body itself facilitates motor learning. Thus, we tested the effects of virtual body-representation on motor learning through a virtual reality rotary pursuit task. In the task, visual feedback on participants' movements was identical, but virtual body-representation differed by dividing the experimental conditions into three conditions: non-avatar, non-hand avatar, and hand-shaped avatar. We measured the differences in the rate of motor learning, body-ownership, and sense of agency in the three conditions. Although there were no differences in body-ownership and sense of agency between the conditions, the hand-shaped avatar condition was significantly superior to the other conditions in the rate of learning. These findings suggest that visually recognizing one's body shape facilitates motor learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yongmin Shin
- Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Jaeseo Lim
- Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Yonggwan Kim
- Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Deog-Gyu Seo
- Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
- Department of Conservative Dentistry, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
| | - Jungjoon Ihm
- Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
- Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
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Slater M, Ehrsson HH. Multisensory Integration Dominates Hypnotisability and Expectations in the Rubber Hand Illusion. Front Hum Neurosci 2022; 16:834492. [PMID: 35782045 PMCID: PMC9244625 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.834492] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2021] [Accepted: 05/04/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Some recent papers by P. Lush and colleagues have argued that the rubber hand illusion (RHI), where participants can feel a rubber hand as their own under appropriate multisensory stimulation, may be caused mainly by hypnotic suggestibility and expectations (demand characteristics). These papers rely primarily on a study with 353 participants who took part in a RHI experiment carried out in a classical way with brush stroking. Participants experienced a synchronous condition where the rubber hand was seen to be touched in synchrony with touch felt on their corresponding hidden real hand, or the touches were applied asynchronously as a control. Each participant had a related measure of their hypnotisability on a scale known as the Sussex-Waterloo Scale of Hypnotisability (SWASH). The authors found a correlation between the questionnaire ratings of the RHI in the synchronous condition and the SWASH score. From this, they concluded that the RHI is largely driven by suggestibility and further proposed that suggestibility and expectations may even entirely explain the RHI. Here we examine their claims in a series of extensive new analyses of their data. We find that at every level of SWASH, the synchronous stimulation results in greater levels of the illusion than the asynchronous condition; moreover, proprioceptive drift is greater in the synchronous case at every level of SWASH. Thus, while the level of hypnotisability does modestly influence the subjective reports (higher SWASH is associated with somewhat higher illusion ratings), the major difference between the synchronous and asynchronous stimulation is always present. Furthermore, by including in the model the participants' expectancy ratings of how strongly they initially believed they would experience the RHI in the two conditions, we show that expectations had a very small effect on the illusion ratings; model comparisons further demonstrate that the multisensory condition is two-to-three-times as dominant as the other factors, with hypnotisability contributing modestly and expectations negligibly. Thus, although the results indicate that trait suggestibility may modulate the RHI, presumably through intersubject variations in top-down factors, the findings also suggest that the primary explanation for the RHI is as a multisensory bodily illusion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mel Slater
- Event Lab, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
- Institute of Neurosciences of the University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - H. Henrik Ehrsson
- Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
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