Integration of predictions and afferent signals in body ownership

Chancel, Marie; Hasenack, Birgit; Ehrsson, H. Henrik

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104722

Cited by 17 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…2 ). The rubber hand illusion was successfully modulated as we had expected, in line with our gradual manipulation of asynchrony ( Chancel and Ehrsson, 2020 ; Chancel et al, 2021a , b ). Moreover, the repartition of answers across different levels of asynchrony and different trials revealed a sufficient degree of individual variability ( Fig.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 79%

Causal Inference of Body Ownership in the Posterior Parietal Cortex

2022

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How do we come to sense that a hand in view belongs to our own body or not? Previous studies have suggested that the integration of vision and somatosensation in the frontoparietal areas plays a critical role in the sense of body ownership (i.e., the multisensory perception of limbs and body parts as our own). However, little is known about how these areas implement the multisensory integration process at the computational level and whether activity predicts illusion elicitation in individual participants on a trial-by-trial basis. To address these questions, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and a rubber hand illusion-detection task and fitted the registered neural responses to a Bayesian causal inference model of body ownership. Thirty healthy human participants (male and female) performed 12 s trials with varying degrees of asynchronously delivered visual and tactile stimuli of a rubber hand (in view) and a (hidden) real hand. After the 12 s period, participants had to judge whether the rubber hand felt like their own. As hypothesized, activity in the premotor and posterior parietal cortices was related to illusion elicitation at the level of individual participants and trials. Importantly, activity in the posterior parietal cortex fit the predicted probability of illusion emergence of the Bayesian causal inference model based on each participant's behavioral response profile. Our findings suggest an important role for the posterior parietal cortex in implementing Bayesian causal inference of body ownership and reveal how trial-by-trial variations in neural signatures of multisensory integration relate to the elicitation of the rubber hand illusion. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT How does the brain create a coherent perceptual experience of one's own body based on information from the different senses? We examined how the likelihood of eliciting a classical bodily illusion that depends on vision and touch—the rubber hand illusion—is related to neural activity measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging. We found that trial-by-trial variations in the neural signal in the posterior parietal cortex, a well known center for sensory integration, fitted a statistical function that describes how likely it is that the brain infers that a rubber hand is one's own given the available visual and tactile evidence. Thus, probabilistic analysis of sensory information in the parietal lobe underlies our unitary sense of bodily self.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 79%

Causal Inference of Body Ownership in the Posterior Parietal Cortex

2022

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“…This outcome intimates that the emergence of such feelings follows from the attentional prioritisation of visual information towards the prosthesis, thereby facilitating its integration within existing body representations (though we note illusions of body ownership can ultimately arise without the contribution of vision, e.g., in the somatic version of the RHI, Ehrsson et al, 2005; also see Ehrsson, 2020, for a review). This interpretation aligns with previous viewpoints (Botvinick & Cohen, 1998;Carey et al, 2019;Chancel et al, 2021;Hagura et al, 2007;Maselli & Slater, 2013;Pavani et al, 2000;Ponzo et al, 2018). Conversely, focusing on tactile information seemingly grounds prior body representations-for example, by allowing participants to better notice discrepancies between seen and felt touchtherefore impeding the ability of visual inputs to induce further alterations.…”

Section: Exploring the Effects Of Task Instructionssupporting

confidence: 85%

The Rubber Hand Illusion: Top-down attention modulates embodiment

Thériault

Landry

Raz

2022

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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The Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) creates distortions of body ownership through multimodal integration of somatosensory and visual inputs. This illusion largely rests on bottom-up (automatic multisensory and perceptual integration) mechanisms. However, the relative contribution from top-down factors, such as controlled processes involving attentional regulation, remains unclear. Following previous work that highlights the putative influence of higher-order cognition in the RHI, we aimed to further examine how modulations of working memory load and task instructions—two conditions engaging top-down cognitive processes—influence the experience of the RHI, as indexed by a number of psychometric dimensions. Relying on exploratory factor analysis for assessing this phenomenology within the RHI, our results confirm the influence of higher-order, top-down mental processes. Whereas task instruction strongly modulated embodiment of the rubber hand, cognitive load altered the affective dimension of the RHI. Our findings corroborate that top-down processes shape the phenomenology of the RHI and herald new ways to improve experimental control over the RHI.

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“…The results show that this task can capture the influence of displacement of the rubber hand on reported ownership. It therefore provides a useful method to answer questions in embodiment and presence research (c.f., Chancel and Ehrsson, 2020;Chancel et al, 2021;Chancel et al, 2022).…”

Section: Methodological and Conceptual Biasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why we Should Rethink Our Approach to Embodiment and Presence

Forster

Karimpur

Fiehler

2022

Front. Virtual Real.

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When interacting with objects in the environment, it feels natural to have a body which moves in accordance to our intentions. Virtual reality (VR) provides a tool to present users with an alternative virtual body and environment. In VR, humans embody the presented virtual body and feel present in the virtual environment. Thus, embodiment and presence frequently co-occur and share some communalities. Nevertheless, both processes have been hardly considered together. Here, we review the current literature on embodiment and presence and present a new conceptual framework, the Implied Body Framework (IBF), which unifies both processes into one single construct. The IBF can be used to generate new hypotheses to further improve the theoretical conceptualisation of embodiment and presence and thus, facilitate its transfer into application.

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Integration of predictions and afferent signals in body ownership

Cited by 17 publications

References 86 publications

Causal Inference of Body Ownership in the Posterior Parietal Cortex

Causal Inference of Body Ownership in the Posterior Parietal Cortex

The Rubber Hand Illusion: Top-down attention modulates embodiment

Why we Should Rethink Our Approach to Embodiment and Presence

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