Short-term visual deprivation boosts the flexibility of body representation

Radziun, Dominika; Ehrsson, H. Henrik

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-24496-8

Cited by 17 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(82 reference statements)

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“…The lack of somatosensory and motor feedback in these states may play an important role in the loss of bodily awareness. Interestingly, two recent findings emphasize the influence of sensory deprivation on the plasticity of body representation: short-term visual deprivation has been shown to lead to significantly larger proprioceptive drift in the rubber hand illusion (Radziun and Ehrsson, 2018 ), while audio-visual sensory deprivation has been found to degrade the boundary of the whole body peripersonal space (Noel et al, 2018 ). These results suggest that sensory deprivation enhances the flexiblity of body representation, and could facilitate the disruption of bodily awareness in meditation and psychedelic states.…”

Section: Alterations Of Self-consciousness Induced By Meditation and mentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness

et al. 2018

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In recent years, the scientific study of meditation and psychedelic drugs has seen remarkable developments. The increased focus on meditation in cognitive neuroscience has led to a cross-cultural classification of standard meditation styles validated by functional and structural neuroanatomical data. Meanwhile, the renaissance of psychedelic research has shed light on the neurophysiology of altered states of consciousness induced by classical psychedelics, such as psilocybin and LSD, whose effects are mainly mediated by agonism of serotonin receptors. Few attempts have been made at bridging these two domains of inquiry, despite intriguing evidence of overlap between the phenomenology and neurophysiology of meditation practice and psychedelic states. In particular, many contemplative traditions explicitly aim at dissolving the sense of self by eliciting altered states of consciousness through meditation, while classical psychedelics are known to produce significant disruptions of self-consciousness, a phenomenon known as drug-induced ego dissolution. In this article, we discuss available evidence regarding convergences and differences between phenomenological and neurophysiological data on meditation practice and psychedelic drug-induced states, with a particular emphasis on alterations of self-experience. While both meditation and psychedelics may disrupt self-consciousness and underlying neural processes, we emphasize that neither meditation nor psychedelic states can be conceived as simple, uniform categories. Moreover, we suggest that there are important phenomenological differences even between conscious states described as experiences of self-loss. As a result, we propose that self-consciousness may be best construed as a multidimensional construct, and that “self-loss,” far from being an unequivocal phenomenon, can take several forms. Indeed, various aspects of self-consciousness, including narrative aspects linked to autobiographical memory, self-related thoughts and mental time travel, and embodied aspects rooted in multisensory processes, may be differently affected by psychedelics and meditation practices. Finally, we consider long-term outcomes of experiences of self-loss induced by meditation and psychedelics on individual traits and prosocial behavior. We call for caution regarding the problematic conflation of temporary states of self-loss with “selflessness” as a behavioral or social trait, although there is preliminary evidence that correlations between short-term experiences of self-loss and long-term trait alterations may exist.

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Section: Alterations Of Self-consciousness Induced By Meditation and mentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness

et al. 2018

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“…This finding is consistent with the notion that an illusory feeling of ownership and proprioceptive drift constitute two distinct components of the RHI 23,24,[31][32][33] . Support for this notion comes from studies showing that proprioceptive drift can occur independent of the illusory sense of ownership 23,[32][33][34][35] and that the perceived hand position does not affect the illusory feeling of ownership 24 .…”

Section: Hypnosis Induction Differently Modulates the Proprioceptive mentioning

confidence: 99%

The rubber hand illusion in hypnosis provides new insights into the sense of body ownership

Fiorio

Modenese

Cesari

2020

Sci Rep

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Body ownership can be experimentally investigated with the rubber hand illusion (RHI), in which watching a rubber hand stroked synchronously with one’s own hidden hand induces a feeling of ownership over the rubber hand. The aim of this study was to investigate response to the RHI in high (N = 21) and low (N = 19) hypnotizable individuals in normal waking state and in hypnosis. Response to the RHI was measured via a question on the illusory feeling of ownership and with proprioceptive drift. The Highs expressed an overall feeling of more ownership over the rubber hand in both the normal waking state and hypnosis, although both groups gave higher ownership scores after synchronous than after asynchronous stroking and the difference between conditions was similar across groups. Conversely, the proprioceptive drift appeared to be differentially modulated by hypnosis and hypnotic suggestibility: it was increased in the Highs and decreased in the Lows after hypnosis induction. These findings hint at an interplay between hypnotic suggestibility and hypnosis in modulating response to the RHI. The selective breakdown of proprioceptive drift among the Lows suggests resistance to recalibrate one’s own limb in hypnosis.

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“…It is actually unlikely to do so: embodiment has been shown to result from the integration of different combinations of multimodal signals, e.g. tactileproprioceptive (the somatic rubber hand illusion; Ehrsson, Holmes, & Passingham, 2005;Radziun & Ehrsson, 2018b) or visuo-proprioceptive (Walsh, Moseley, Taylor, & Gandevia, 2011;Samad, Chung, & Shams, 2015). Visuomotor elicitation may be one of various possibilitiesbased on the integration of different kinds of information and is computationally more complex, but 'qualitatively' similar.…”

Section: Active Vs Passive Conditionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rubber Hand Illusion does not arise from comparisons with internal body models: a new multisensory integration account of the sense of ownership

Litwin

2018

Preprint

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Human body sense is surprisingly flexible – precisely administered multisensory stimulation may result in the illusion that an external object is part of one’s body. There seems to be a general consensus that there are certain top-down constraints on which objects may be incorporated: in particular, to-be-embodied objects should be structurally similar to a visual representation stored in an internal body model for a shift in one’s body image to occur. However, empirical evidence contradicts the body model hypothesis: the sense of ownership may be spread over objects strikingly distinct in morphology and structure (e.g., robotic arms or empty space) and direct empirical support for the theory is currently lacking. As an alternative, based on the example of the rubber hand illusion (RHI), I propose a multisensory integration account of how the sense of ownership is induced. In this account, the perception of one’s own body is a regular type of multisensory perception and multisensory integration processes are not only necessary but also sufficient for embodiment. In this paper, I propose how RHI can be modeled with the use of Maximum Likelihood Estimation and natural correlation rules. I also discuss how Bayesian Coupling Priors and idiosyncrasies in sensory processing render prior distributions interindividually variable, accounting for large interindividual differences in susceptibility to RHI. Taken together, the proposed model accounts for exceptional malleability of human body perception, fortifies existing bottom-up multisensory integration theories with top-down models of relatedness of sensory cues, and generates testable and disambiguating predictions.

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Short-term visual deprivation boosts the flexibility of body representation

Cited by 17 publications

References 60 publications

Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness

Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness

The rubber hand illusion in hypnosis provides new insights into the sense of body ownership

Rubber Hand Illusion does not arise from comparisons with internal body models: a new multisensory integration account of the sense of ownership

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