scholarly journals The Emotional Glue of the Senses: Affective Certainty and Congruency in the Rubber Hand Illusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Laura Filippetti ◽  
Louise P. Kirsch ◽  
Laura Crucianelli ◽  
Aikaterini Fotopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Sensory Stimulation ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Spatial Properties ◽  
Affective Quality ◽  
Temporal And Spatial

AbstractOur sense of body ownership relies on integrating different sensations according to their temporal and spatial congruency. Nevertheless, there is ongoing controversy about the role of affective congruency during multisensory integration, i.e. whether the stimuli to be perceived by the different sensory channels are congruent or incongruent in terms of their affective quality. In the present study, we applied a widely used multisensory integration paradigm, the Rubber Hand Illusion, to investigate the role of affective, top-down aspects of sensory congruency between visual and tactile modalities in the sense of body ownership. In Experiment 1 (N = 36), we touched participants with either soft or rough fabrics in their unseen hand, while they watched a rubber hand been touched synchronously with the same fabric or with a ‘hidden’ fabric of ‘uncertain roughness’. In Experiment 2 (N = 50), we used the same paradigm as in Experiment 1, but replaced the ‘uncertainty’ condition with an ‘incongruent’ one, in which participants saw the rubber hand being touched with a fabric of incongruent roughness and hence opposite valence. We found that certainty (Experiment 1) and congruency (Experiment 2) between the felt and vicariously perceived tactile affectivity led to higher subjective embodiment compared to uncertainty and incongruency, respectively, irrespective of any valence effect. Our results suggest that congruency in the affective top-down aspects of sensory stimulation is important to the multisensory integration process leading to embodiment, over and above temporal and spatial properties.

scholarly journals Two-Dimensional Rubber-Hand Illusion: The Dorian Gray Hand Illusion

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 101-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Achille Pasqualotto ◽  
Michael J. Proulx
Keyword(s):  
Dominant Role ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Body Representation ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Skin Conductance Responses

The rubber-hand illusion provides a window into body representation and consciousness. It has been found that body-ownership extended to numerous hand-like objects. Interestingly, the vast majority of these objects were three-dimensional. We adopted this paradigm by using hand drawings to investigate whether rubber-hand illusion could be extended to two-dimensional hand samples, and we measured skin conductance responses and behavioural variables. The fact that this illusion extended to two-dimensional stimuli reveals the dominant role of top–down information on visual perception for body representation and consciousness.

scholarly journals Multisensory integration underlying body-ownership experiences in schizophrenia and offspring of patients: a study using the rubber hand illusion paradigm

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merel Prikken ◽  
Anouk van der Weiden ◽  
Heleen Baalbergen ◽  
Manon H.J. Hillegers ◽  
René S. Kahn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Rubber Hand

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

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Litwin
Keyword(s):  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Human Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Multisensory Perception ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Sense Of Ownership ◽  
Body Model ◽  
Internal Body

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.

Higher Emotional Intelligence Is Associated With a Stronger Rubber Hand Illusion

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 615-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Perepelkina ◽  
Maria Boboleva ◽  
Galina Arina ◽  
Valentina Nikolaeva
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Additional Measure ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Subjective Reports ◽  
Processing Factors ◽  
Proprioceptive Drift

The aim of the study was to investigate how emotion information processing factors, such as alexithymia and emotional intelligence, modulate body ownership and influence multisensory integration during the ‘rubber hand illusion’ (RHI) task. It was previously shown that alexithymia correlates with RHI, and we suggested that emotional intelligence should also be a top-down factor of body ownership, since it was not shown in previous experiments. We elaborated the study of Grynberg and Pollatos [Front. Hum. Neurosci.9(2015) 357] with an additional measure of emotional intelligence, and propose an explanation for the interrelation of emotion and body ownership processing. Eighty subjects took part in the RHI experiment and completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). Only MSCEIT was detected to be a significant predictor of the subjective measure of the RHI. There were no significant correlations between alexithymia scores and the test statements of the RHI or the proprioceptive drift, thus we did not replicate the results of Grynberg and Pollatos. However, alexithymia correlated with the control statements of subjective reports of the illusion, which might be explained as a disruption of the ability to discriminate and describe bodily experience. Therefore, (1) alexithymia seems to be connected with difficulties in conscious or verbal processing of body-related information, and (2) higher emotional intelligence might improve multisensory integration of body-related signals and reflect better predictive models of self-processing.

scholarly journals EXPRESS: Vicarious Pain is an Outcome of Atypical Body Ownership: Evidence from the Rubber Hand Illusion and Enfacement Illusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110248
Author(s):  
V. Botan ◽  
Abigail Salisbury ◽  
H.D. Critchley ◽  
Jamie Ward
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Information ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Single Body ◽  
Sensory Evidence ◽  
Different Response ◽  
Bodily Illusion

Some people report localised pain on their body when seeing other people in pain (sensory-localised vicarious pain responders). In this study we assess whether this is related to atypical computations of body ownership which, in paradigms such as the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI), can be conceptualised as a Bayesian inference as to whether multiple sources of sensory information (visual, somatosensory) belong together on a single body (one’s own) or are distributed across several bodies (vision=other, somatosensory=self). According to this model, computations of body ownership depend on the degree (and precision) of sensory evidence, rather than synchrony per se. Sensory-localised vicarious pain responders exhibit the RHI following synchronous stroking and – unusually – also after asynchronous stroking. Importantly, this occurs only in asynchronous conditions in which the stroking is predictable (alternating) rather than unpredictable (random). There was no evidence that their bottom-up proprioceptive signals are less precise, suggesting individual differences in the top-down weighting of sensory evidence. Finally, the Enfacement illusion (EI) was also employed as a conceptually-related bodily illusion paradigm that involves a completely different response judgment (based on vision rather than proprioception). Sensory-localised responders show a comparable pattern on this task after synchronous and asynchronous stroking. This is consistent with the idea that they have top-down (prior) differences in the way body ownership is inferred that transcends the exact judgment being made (visual or proprioceptive).

scholarly journals What do participants expect to experience in the rubber hand illusion?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arran T Reader
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
The Body ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Demand Characteristics ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Synchronous Condition ◽  
Subjective Reports

The sense of body ownership (the feeling that the body belongs to the self) is commonly believed to arise through multisensory integration. This is famously shown in the rubber hand illusion (RHI), where touches applied synchronously to a false hand and to the participant’s real hand (which is hidden from view) can induce a sensation of ownership over the fake one. Asynchronous touches weaken the illusion, and are typically used as a control condition. Subjective experience during the illusion is measured using a questionnaire, with some statements designed to capture illusory sensation and others designed as controls. However, recent work by Lush (2020, Collabra: Psychology) claimed that participants may have different levels of expectation for questionnaire items in the synchronous condition compared to the asynchronous condition, and for the illusion-related items compared to the control items. This may mean that the classic RHI questionnaire is poorly controlled for demand characteristics. As such, Lush (2020) suggested that subjective reports in the RHI may reflect compliance or even the generation of experience to meet expectations (‘phenomenological control’), rather than multisensory processes underlying the sense of body ownership. In the current work a conceptual replication of Lush (2020) was performed with an improved experimental design. Participants were presented with a video of the RHI procedure and reported the sensations they would expect to experience, both in open questions and by rating questionnaire items. In keeping with Lush (2020), participants had greater expectations for illusion statements in the synchronous condition compared to the asynchronous condition, and for illusion statements compared to control statements. However, there was also evidence that some expectations may be driven by exposure to the questionnaire items rather than exposure to the illusion procedure. The role of pre-illusion expectations and expectations driven by questionnaire exposure in the RHI require further examination.

scholarly journals O2.5. MULTISENSORY INTEGRATION UNDERLYING BODY OWNERSHIP IN SCHIZOPHRENIA AND INDIVIDUALS AT FAMILIAL RISK TO DEVELOP PSYCHOSIS: A STUDY USING THE RUBBER HAND ILLUSION PARADIGM

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (suppl_1) ◽  
pp. S77-S77
Author(s):  
Neeltje Van Haren ◽  
Merel Prikken ◽  
Anouk van der Weiden ◽  
Heleen Baalbergen ◽  
Manon Hillegers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Familial Risk ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Rubber Hand

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

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Litwin
Keyword(s):  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Human Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Multisensory Perception ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Sense Of Ownership ◽  
Body Model ◽  
Internal Body

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.

scholarly journals The effect of intranasal oxytocin on the perception of affective touch and multisensory integration in anorexia nervosa: protocol for a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover study

BMJ Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. e024913
Author(s):  
Laura Crucianelli ◽  
Lucy Serpell ◽  
Yannis Paloyelis ◽  
Lucia Ricciardi ◽  
Paul Robinson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Image ◽  
Anorexia Nervosa ◽  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
Double Blind Placebo ◽  
Affective Touch ◽  
Body Image Disturbances

IntroductionAnorexia nervosa (AN) is an eating disorder characterised by restriction of energy intake, fears of gaining weight and related body image disturbances. The oxytocinergic system has been proposed as a pathophysiological candidate for AN. Oxytocin is a neuropeptide involved in bodily processes (eg, breast feeding) and in the onset of social behaviours (eg, bonding). Studies investigating the effect of intranasal oxytocin (IN-OT) in AN showed that it can improve attentional bias for high-calorie food and fat bodies stimuli, and related stress. However, less is known about the effect of IN-OT on bodily awareness and body image distortions, key features of the disorder linked to its development, prognosis and maintenance. Here, we aim to investigate the effect of IN-OT on the perception of affective, C-tactile-optimal touch, known to be impaired in AN and on multisensory integration processes underlying a body ownership illusion (ie, rubber hand illusion). For exploratory purposes, we will also investigate the effect of IN-OT on another interoceptive modality, namely cardiac awareness and its relationship with affective touch.Design, methods and analysisForty women with AN and forty matched healthy controls will be recruited and tested in two separate sessions; self-administering IN-OT (40 IU) or placebo, intranasally, in a pseudo-randomised manner. The data from this double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over study will be analysed using linear mixed models that allow the use of both fixed (treatment levels) and random (subjects) effects in the same analysis. To address our main hypotheses, separate analyses will be run for the affective touch task, where the primary outcome dependent variable will be the pleasantness of the touch, and for the rubber hand illusion, where we will investigate multisensory integration quantified as subjective embodiment towards the rubber hand. In the latter, we will manipulate the synchronicity of touch and the size of the hand.Ethics and disseminationEthics approval has been obtained by National Research Ethics Service NRES Committee London (Queen’s Square Committee, ref number 14/LO/1593). The results will be disseminated through conference presentations and publication in peer-reviewed journals.

The Role of the Cerebellum in Dynamic Changes of the Sense of Body Ownership: A Study in Patients with Cerebellar Degeneration

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 712-721 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirta Fiorio ◽  
Caterina Mariotti ◽  
Marta Panzeri ◽  
Emanuele Antonello ◽  
Joseph Classen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cerebellar Ataxia ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Premotor Cortex ◽  
The Body ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Subjective Feeling ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Proprioceptive Drift

The sense of the body is deeply rooted in humans, and it can be experimentally manipulated by inducing illusions in at least two aspects: a subjective feeling of ownership and a proprioceptive sense of limb position. Previous studies mapped these different aspects onto anatomically distinct neuronal regions, with the ventral premotor cortex processing subjective experience of ownership and the inferior parietal lobule processing proprioceptive calibration. Lines of evidence suggest an involvement also of the cerebellum, but its precise role is not clear yet. To investigate the contribution of the cerebellum in the sense of body ownership, we applied the rubber-hand illusion paradigm in 28 patients affected by neurodegenerative cerebellar ataxia, selectively involving the cerebellum, and in 26 age-matched control participants. The rubber hand illusion is established by synchronous stroking of the participants' real unseen hand and a visible fake hand. Short asynchronous stroking does not bring about the illusion. We tested the subjective experience of the illusion, evaluated through a questionnaire and the proprioceptive drift of the real unseen hand toward the viewed rubber hand. In patients with cerebellar ataxia, we observed reduced sense of the subjective illusory experience specifically after synchronous stroking. In contrast, the proprioceptive drift was enhanced after synchronous and after asynchronous stimulation. These findings support the contention that the mechanisms underlying the presence of the illusion and the proprioceptive drift may be differently affected in different conditions. Impairment of the subjective sense of the illusion in cerebellar patients might hint at an involvement of cerebellar-premotor networks, whereas the proprioceptive drift typically associated with synchronous stroking appears to rely on other circuits, likely involving the cerebellum and the parietal regions.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document