Turning Body and Self Inside Out

Abstract

Prominent theories highlight the importance of bodily perception for self-consciousness, but it is currently not known whether bodily perception is based on interoceptive or exteroceptive signals or on integrated signals from these anatomically distinct systems. In the research reported here, we combined both types of signals by surreptitiously providing participants with visual exteroceptive information about their heartbeat: A real-time video image of a periodically illuminated silhouette outlined participants’ (projected, “virtual”) bodies and flashed in synchrony with their heartbeats. We investigated whether these “cardio-visual” signals could modulate bodily self-consciousness and tactile perception. We report two main findings. First, synchronous cardio-visual signals increased self-identification with and self-location toward the virtual body, and second, they altered the perception of tactile stimuli applied to participants’ backs so that touch was mislocalized toward the virtual body. We argue that the integration of signals from the inside and the outside of the human body is a fundamental neurobiological process underlying self-consciousness.

Recommendations for Good Scientific Practice and the Consumers of VR-Technology

“…They found that a virtual arm with a realistic appearance co-located with the subject's actual arm is sufficient to induce the illusion of ownership of the virtual arm. In addition to visual and tactile signals, recent work suggests that manipulations of interoceptive signals, such as heartbeat, can also influence our experience of embodiment (Aspell et al, 2013;Seth, 2013).…”

“…Rather than unsatisfactory reproductions of familiar modes of interaction, the technology should be developed with an eye toward "expanding and reinventing our sense of body and action" (2003, p. 111). Consider, for example, using a combination of substitutional and augmented reality to see a representation of some of the physiological states of your partner who is many miles away -such as a soft flash over the body in synchrony with the heartbeat (as in Aspell et al, 2013). That and similar uses of the technology could plausibly enhance embodied (though mediated) social interaction.…”

The neural subjective frame: from bodily signals to perceptual consciousness

“…As detailed below, those findings actually neither refute nor confirm the subjective frame hypothesis, because they tap onto a different issue. With a few exceptions [80], the above-listed studies were inspired by the baroreceptor hypothesis developed by Lacey & Lacey [59,60]. Briefly, baroreceptors located in arterial walls register changes in blood pressure at each heart cycle as well as changes in mean blood pressure, and trigger the socalled baroreflex to maintain a stable blood pressure.…”

Interoceptive ingredients of body ownership: Affective touch and cardiac awareness in the rubber hand illusion

“…However, the relationship between interoception and body representation has been investigated also in the context of the virtual body illusion (Aspell et al, 2013) and virtual RHI (Suzuki, Garfinkel, Critchley & Seth, 2013). In both studies, visual feedback of participants' own heartbeat was provided 'on-line' (i.e.…”