Behavioral, Neural, and Computational Principles of Bodily Self-Consciousness

Blanke, Olaf; Slater, Mel; Serino, Andrea

doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.029

Cited by 541 publications

(508 citation statements)

References 227 publications

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“…Multisensory integration of bodily inputs, in particular, has been recently proposed as a key mechanism underlying the experience of oneself within a body, which is perceived as one's own (body ownership), which occupies a specific location in space (self-location), and from which the external world is perceived (first person-perspective), i.e., the different components of what has been called bodily selfconsciousness (Blanke and Metzinger, 2009;Blanke, 2012;Blanke et al, 2015). Accordingly, the manipulation of bodily inputs has been used to induce the feeling that an artificial or virtual body is one's own and to generate the sensation of being located within a virtual environment (Tsakiris, 2010;Blanke, 2012;Ehrsson, 2012;Serino et al, 2013;Noel et al, 2015b;Salomon et al, 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

Peripersonal Space: An Index of Multisensory Body–Environment Interactions in Real, Virtual, and Mixed Realities

et al. 2018

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Human-environment interactions normally occur in the physical milieu and thus by medium of the body and within the space immediately adjacent to and surrounding the body, the peripersonal space (PPS). However, human interactions increasingly occur with or within virtual environments, and hence novel approaches and metrics must be developed to index human-environment interactions in virtual reality (VR). Here, we present a multisensory task that measures the spatial extent of human PPS in real, virtual, and augmented realities. We validated it in a mixed reality (MR) ecosystem in which real environment and virtual objects are blended together in order to administer and control visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli in ecologically valid conditions. Within this mixed-reality environment, participants are asked to respond as fast as possible to tactile stimuli on their body, while task-irrelevant visual or audiovisual stimuli approach their body. Results demonstrate that, in analogy with observations derived from monkey electrophysiology and in real environmental surroundings, tactile detection is enhanced when visual or auditory stimuli are close to the body, and not when far from it. We then calculate the location where this multisensory facilitation occurs as a proxy of the boundary of PPS. We observe that mapping of PPS via audiovisual, as opposed to visual alone, looming stimuli results in sigmoidal fits-allowing for the bifurcation between near and far space-with greater goodness of fit. In sum, our approach is able to capture the boundaries of PPS on a spatial continuum, at the individual-subject level, and within a fully controlled and previously laboratory-validated setup, while maintaining the richness and ecological validity of real-life events. The task can therefore be applied to study the properties of PPS in humans and to index the features governing human-environment interactions in virtual or MR. We propose PPS as an ecologically valid and neurophysiologically established metric in the study of the impact of VR and related technologies on society and individuals.

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confidence: 99%

Peripersonal Space: An Index of Multisensory Body–Environment Interactions in Real, Virtual, and Mixed Realities

et al. 2018

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“…Through these processes, it is possible to estimate the forthcoming position of a target within the PPS and its related consequences by a motoric point of view (Blanke, Slater, & Serino, 2015). This is possible through an integrated, highly dynamic system controlling both visual and tactile inputs within PPS, which is more sensitive to the final position where the hand is expected to be than the actual position where the hand is (Bisio et al., 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting peripersonal space: The promising role of ultrasonics

et al. 2018

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IntroductionThe approach of an external stimulus to the peripersonal space (PPS) modifies some physiological measures, including the cerebral blood flow (CBF) in the supplementary motor area and premotor cortex. CBF measurement may be useful to assess brain activations when producing specific motor responses, likely mediated by cortical and subcortical neural circuits.MethodsThis study investigated PPS in 15 healthy humans by characterizing the hemodynamic responses (pulsatility index, PI; and heart rate, HR) related to different directions of movements of individual's hand toward and backward his/her own face, so to perturb PPS).ResultsWe observed that the CBF and HR were enhanced more when the stimulated hand was inside the PPS of the face in the passive and active condition than when the hand was outside the PPS and during motor imagery task.ConclusionsThese results suggest that the modulation of PPS‐related brain responses depends on specific sensory‐motor integration processes related to the location and the final position of a target in the PPS. We may thus propose TCD as a rapid and easy approach to get information concerning brain responses related to stimuli approaching the PPS. Understanding the modulations of brain activations during tasks targeting PPS can help to understand the results of psychophysical and behavioral trials and to plan patient‐tailored cognitive rehabilitative training.

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“…We note that our training may have established not only visual-proprioceptive association but also some aspects of learning of visual-motor transduction. Furthermore, the training board was placed in a "peripersonal" space, which is considered to be particularly important for bodily self-consciousness (19). However, further study is required to determine whether training within peripersonal space is necessary for inducing MSR.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spontaneous expression of mirror self-recognition in monkeys after learning precise visual-proprioceptive association for mirror images

Chang

Zhang

Poo

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Mirror self-recognition (MSR) is generally considered to be an intrinsic cognitive ability found only in humans and a few species of great apes. Rhesus monkeys do not spontaneously show MSR, but they have the ability to use a mirror as an instrument to find hidden objects. The mechanism underlying the transition from simple mirror use to MSR remains unclear. Here we show that rhesus monkeys could show MSR after learning precise visualproprioceptive association for mirror images. We trained headfixed monkeys on a chair in front of a mirror to touch with spatiotemporal precision a laser pointer light spot on an adjacent board that could only be seen in the mirror. After several weeks of training, when the same laser pointer light was projected to the monkey's face, a location not used in training, all three trained monkeys successfully touched the face area marked by the light spot in front of a mirror. All trained monkeys passed the standard face mark test for MSR both on the monkey chair and in their home cage. Importantly, distinct from untrained control monkeys, the trained monkeys showed typical mirror-induced self-directed behaviors in their home cage, such as using the mirror to explore normally unseen body parts. Thus, bodily self-consciousness may be a cognitive ability present in many more species than previously thought, and acquisition of precise visual-proprioceptive association for the images in the mirror is critical for revealing the MSR ability of the animal.mirror self-recognition | rhesus monkey | bodily self-consciousness | visual-proprioceptive association | instrumental mirror use S elf-awareness reflects a form of higher intelligence that could be revealed by mirror self-recognition (MSR) in humans. Testing MSR has become the main approach in studying selfrecognition in animals, and only a few species (1-8) have passed the test. In the standard face mark test for demonstrating MSR, an odorless nonirritant dye is placed on the face of the subject (without the subject's awareness) that can only be seen in the mirror. Humans and several species of great apes could pass the test by touching the dye mark after seeing themselves in the mirror. However, it remains unclear whether failing the MSR test is a result of the lack of an animal's self-recognition ability or the inadequacy of the mirror test to reveal this ability (9). Previous studies on several species of monkeys have shown that although monkeys could not pass the mark test, they were capable of using the mirror as an instrument to find hidden objects with or without training (10-15). This has led to the view that instrumental mirror use and MSR represent two distinct levels of cognitive abilities. In our previous study, we found that some rhesus monkeys could pass various forms of the mark test after visual-somatosensory training, indicating the monkey's ability to learn MSR. This led to the present study of the mechanism underlying the transition from the simple instrumental use of the mirror to MSR in rhesus monkeys. We found that mirr...

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Behavioral, Neural, and Computational Principles of Bodily Self-Consciousness

Cited by 541 publications

References 227 publications

Peripersonal Space: An Index of Multisensory Body–Environment Interactions in Real, Virtual, and Mixed Realities

Peripersonal Space: An Index of Multisensory Body–Environment Interactions in Real, Virtual, and Mixed Realities

Detecting peripersonal space: The promising role of ultrasonics

Spontaneous expression of mirror self-recognition in monkeys after learning precise visual-proprioceptive association for mirror images

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