The ‘Enfacement’ illusion: A window on the plasticity of the self

Porciello, Giuseppina; Bufalari, Ilaria; Minio-Paluello, Ilaria; Pace, Enrico Di; Aglioti, Salvatore Maria

doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2018.01.007

Cited by 75 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 89 publications

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“…Our data indicate that congruent breathing increases the sensation of owning the virtual body, controlling for the larger effects of perspective and appearance. This fits well with theories that posit that physiological signals play a crucial role in giving rise to human self-consciousness (Craig 2009; Critchley and Harrison 2013; Herbert and Pollatos 2012; Park and Tallon-Baudry 2014), especially when they are manipulated in an ecological fashion (Porciello et al 2018). This result extends what was previously known from a study by Allard and colleagues (2017), who found that participants were more likely to display self-identification with a picture of a body seen from the back when this image artificially flashed in sync with their breathing (although flashing does not consistently increase self-identification; see Adler et al 2014 andPorciello et al 2016).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

The “embreathment” illusion highlights the role of breathing in corporeal awareness

Monti

Porciello

Tieri

et al. 2020

Journal of Neurophysiology

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Recent theories posit that physiological signals contribute to corporeal awareness, the basic feeling that one has a body (body ownership) that acts according to one’s will (body agency) and occupies a specific position (body location). Combining physiological recordings with immersive virtual reality, we found that an ecological mapping of real respiratory patterns onto a virtual body illusorily changes corporeal awareness. This new way of inducing a respiratory bodily illusion, called “embreathment,” revealed that breathing is almost as important as visual appearance for inducing body ownership and more important than any other cue for body agency. These effects were moderated by individual levels of interoception, as assessed through a standard heartbeat-counting task and a new “pneumoception” task. By showing that respiratory, visual, and spatial signals exert a specific and weighted influence on the fundamental feeling that one is an embodied agent, we pave the way for a comprehensive hierarchical model of corporeal awareness. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Our body is the only object we sense from the inside; however, it is unclear how much inner physiology contributes to the global sensation of having a body and controlling it. We combine respiration recordings with immersive virtual reality and find that making a virtual body breathe like the real body gives an illusory sense of ownership and agency over the avatar, elucidating the role of a key physiological process like breathing in corporeal awareness.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

The “embreathment” illusion highlights the role of breathing in corporeal awareness

Monti

Porciello

Tieri

et al. 2020

Journal of Neurophysiology

Self Cite

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“…Increasing levels of overlap between neural representations of self and other suggest that an individual may not be completely separate from more familiar conspecifics. Additionally, enfacement theory posits that synchronous stimulation and movement of self and other create a subjective illusion in which the other appears as the self (Porciello et al, 2018). Participants exposed to synchronous stimulation showed more merging of self and the other than participants exposed to asynchronous stimulation (Paladino et al, 2010).…”

Section: Dynamic Extension Of Social Baseline Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Processes Unfold in a Social Context: A Review and Extension of Social Baseline Theory

Gross

Medina-DeVilliers

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Psychologists often assume that social and cognitive processes operate independently, an assumption that prompts research into how social context influences cognitive processes. We propose that social and cognitive processes are not necessarily separate, and that social context is innate to resource dependent cognitive processes. We review the research supporting social baseline theory, which argues that our default state in physiological, cognitive, and neural processing is to incorporate the relative costs and benefits of acting in our social environment. The review extends social baseline theory by applying social baseline theory to basic cognitive processes such as vision, memory, and attention, incorporating individual differences into the theory, reviewing environmental influences on social baselines, and exploring the dynamic effects of social interactions. The theoretical and methodological implications of social baseline theory are discussed, and future research endeavors into social cognition should consider that cognitive processes are situated within our social environments.

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“…Individuals with a stronger sense of self may be better at mapping observed self‐related (human) touch stimuli onto predictive bodily event templates. It has previously been suggested that individuals with better interoceptive abilities are less susceptible to body ownership illusions (e.g., rubber hand illusion) because such individuals have better predictive models of self‐related bodily experiences (Tsakiris et al, ; for a recent review, see Porciello, Bufalari, Minio‐Palluelo, Di Pace, & Aglioto, ). If incoming tactile information can be optimally accommodated, there is less reliance on visual information and less embodiment of a rubber hand.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bodily self‐relatedness in vicarious touch is reflected at early cortical processing stages

Adler

Gillmeister

2019

Psychophysiology

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Studies have suggested that there is a strong link between the bodily self and the mechanisms underlying vicarious representations. Here, we used somatosensory ERPs to investigate the temporal dynamics of vicarious touch for stimuli that are more or less related to one's own body (human hands vs. rubber gloves). We found that vicarious touch effects were restricted to self‐relatable events (human hands) at early implicit stages of somatosensory processing (P45). At later more cognitive stages of processing (late positive complex, LPC), the vicarious touch effect was stronger for self‐relatable events (touch on human hands) than nonself‐relatable events (touch on rubber gloves) but present for both. Both effects, but especially the vicarious touch effect for human hands at P45, were stronger in individuals with higher levels of interoceptive awareness. Our results confirm that there is a tight link between vicarious touch and the bodily self and characterize P45 effects of vicarious touch as its likely neural basis. We propose that vicarious processes and the embodied self may be representationally indistinct (linked in a common neural representation) at early implicit somatosensory processing stages.

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The ‘Enfacement’ illusion: A window on the plasticity of the self

Cited by 75 publications

References 89 publications

The “embreathment” illusion highlights the role of breathing in corporeal awareness

The “embreathment” illusion highlights the role of breathing in corporeal awareness

Cognitive Processes Unfold in a Social Context: A Review and Extension of Social Baseline Theory

Bodily self‐relatedness in vicarious touch is reflected at early cortical processing stages

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