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Towards a Digital Body: The Virtual Arm Illusion

The integration of the human brain with computers is an interesting new area of applied neuroscience, where one application is replacement of a person's real body by a virtual representation. Here we demonstrate that a virtual limb can be made to feel part of your body if appropriate multisenso...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Slater, Mel, Perez-Marcos, Daniel, Ehrsson, H. Henrik, Sanchez-Vives, Maria V.
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Research Foundation 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2572198/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18958207
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/neuro.09.006.2008
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author Slater, Mel
Perez-Marcos, Daniel
Ehrsson, H. Henrik
Sanchez-Vives, Maria V.
author_facet Slater, Mel
Perez-Marcos, Daniel
Ehrsson, H. Henrik
Sanchez-Vives, Maria V.
author_sort Slater, Mel
collection PubMed
description The integration of the human brain with computers is an interesting new area of applied neuroscience, where one application is replacement of a person's real body by a virtual representation. Here we demonstrate that a virtual limb can be made to feel part of your body if appropriate multisensory correlations are provided. We report an illusion that is invoked through tactile stimulation on a person's hidden real right hand with synchronous virtual visual stimulation on an aligned 3D stereo virtual arm projecting horizontally out of their shoulder. An experiment with 21 male participants showed displacement of ownership towards the virtual hand, as illustrated by questionnaire responses and proprioceptive drift. A control experiment with asynchronous tapping was carried out with a different set of 20 male participants who did not experience the illusion. After 5 min of stimulation the virtual arm rotated. Evidence suggests that the extent of the illusion was also correlated with the degree of muscle activity onset in the right arm as measured by EMG during this period that the arm was rotating, for the synchronous but not the asynchronous condition. A completely virtual object can therefore be experienced as part of one's self, which opens up the possibility that an entire virtual body could be felt as one's own in future virtual reality applications or online games, and be an invaluable tool for the understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying body ownership.
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spelling pubmed-25721982008-10-27 Towards a Digital Body: The Virtual Arm Illusion Slater, Mel Perez-Marcos, Daniel Ehrsson, H. Henrik Sanchez-Vives, Maria V. Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience The integration of the human brain with computers is an interesting new area of applied neuroscience, where one application is replacement of a person's real body by a virtual representation. Here we demonstrate that a virtual limb can be made to feel part of your body if appropriate multisensory correlations are provided. We report an illusion that is invoked through tactile stimulation on a person's hidden real right hand with synchronous virtual visual stimulation on an aligned 3D stereo virtual arm projecting horizontally out of their shoulder. An experiment with 21 male participants showed displacement of ownership towards the virtual hand, as illustrated by questionnaire responses and proprioceptive drift. A control experiment with asynchronous tapping was carried out with a different set of 20 male participants who did not experience the illusion. After 5 min of stimulation the virtual arm rotated. Evidence suggests that the extent of the illusion was also correlated with the degree of muscle activity onset in the right arm as measured by EMG during this period that the arm was rotating, for the synchronous but not the asynchronous condition. A completely virtual object can therefore be experienced as part of one's self, which opens up the possibility that an entire virtual body could be felt as one's own in future virtual reality applications or online games, and be an invaluable tool for the understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying body ownership. Frontiers Research Foundation 2008-08-20 /pmc/articles/PMC2572198/ /pubmed/18958207 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/neuro.09.006.2008 Text en Copyright © 2008 Slater, Perez-Marcos, Ehrsson and Sanchez-Vives. http://www.frontiersin.org/licenseagreement This is an openaccess article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Slater, Mel
Perez-Marcos, Daniel
Ehrsson, H. Henrik
Sanchez-Vives, Maria V.
Towards a Digital Body: The Virtual Arm Illusion
title Towards a Digital Body: The Virtual Arm Illusion
title_full Towards a Digital Body: The Virtual Arm Illusion
title_fullStr Towards a Digital Body: The Virtual Arm Illusion
title_full_unstemmed Towards a Digital Body: The Virtual Arm Illusion
title_short Towards a Digital Body: The Virtual Arm Illusion
title_sort towards a digital body: the virtual arm illusion
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2572198/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18958207
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/neuro.09.006.2008
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