http://www.aerzteblatt-studieren.de/doc.asp?docid=106251
Video Ergo Sum: Manipulating Bodily Self-Consciousness
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.
1 Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Station 15, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.2 Philosophical Seminar, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany.
3 Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
4 Department of Neurology, University Hospital, 1214 Geneva, Switzerland. * To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: olaf.blanke@epfl.ch
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