RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Video Ergo Sum: Manipulating Bodily Self-Consciousness
JF Science
JO Science
FD American Association for the Advancement of Science
SP 1096
OP 1099
DO 10.1126/science.1143439
VO 317
IS 5841
A1 Lenggenhager, Bigna
A1 Tadi, Tej
A1 Metzinger, Thomas
A1 Blanke, Olaf
YR 2007
UL http://science.sciencemag.org/content/317/5841/1096.abstract
AB Humans normally experience the conscious self as localized within their bodily borders. This spatial unity may break down in certain neurological conditions such as out-of-body experiences, leading to a striking disturbance of bodily self-consciousness. On the basis of these clinical data, we designed an experiment that uses conflicting visual-somatosensory input in virtual reality to disrupt the spatial unity between the self and the body. We found that during multisensory conflict, participants felt as if a virtual body seen in front of them was their own body and mislocalized themselves toward the virtual body, to a position outside their bodily borders. Our results indicate that spatial unity and bodily self-consciousness can be studied experimentally and are based on multisensory and cognitive processing of bodily information.