A research proves that the brain infers a single body representation from real and virtual perceptions

Participants in the study entered into virtual reality through a head-mounted display. When they looked down towards where their real body should be, they saw a virtual body.
Participants in the study entered into virtual reality through a head-mounted display. When they looked down towards where their real body should be, they saw a virtual body.
Research
(29/05/2013)

A research published on Royal Society Journal Interface proves the relationship between body ownership and thermal sensitivity. The paper is signed by the following researchers from the Faculty of Psychology of the UB: Joan Llobera, PhD Student at the Experimental Virtual Environments Lab for Neuroscience and Technology (Event LAB), Maria V. Sanchez-Vives,ICREA researcher and leader of IDIBAPS team Systems neuroscience, and Mel Slater, both directors of Event LAB.

Participants in the study entered into virtual reality through a head-mounted display. When they looked down towards where their real body should be, they saw a virtual body.
Participants in the study entered into virtual reality through a head-mounted display. When they looked down towards where their real body should be, they saw a virtual body.
Research
29/05/2013

A research published on Royal Society Journal Interface proves the relationship between body ownership and thermal sensitivity. The paper is signed by the following researchers from the Faculty of Psychology of the UB: Joan Llobera, PhD Student at the Experimental Virtual Environments Lab for Neuroscience and Technology (Event LAB), Maria V. Sanchez-Vives,ICREA researcher and leader of IDIBAPS team Systems neuroscience, and Mel Slater, both directors of Event LAB.

 

The article shows that it is possible to substitute a personʼs real body for a virtual one that can be only seen in virtual reality. Participants in the study entered into virtual reality through a head-mounted display. When they looked down towards where their real body should be, they saw a virtual body. If they looked on a virtual mirror, they saw their virtual body reflected. Moreover, when they moved their hands, they saw the virtual hand move the same.

 
Researchersʼ main interest was to analyse whether virtual body ownership meant a neglect of real body. Previous studies showed that, in the phenomenon so-called ʻrubber hand illusionʼ, people thought that rubber hands were their own hands, and a cooling of real hand temperature occurred then. Consequently, scientists affirmed that real hand is ʻdisownedʼ or neglected by the brain, in favour for rubber hand.
 
Instead of measuring skin temperature, researchers measured participantsʼ sensitivity to small variations on hands temperature. Their hypothesis was that if they ʻdisownedʼ or neglected their real body, due to virtual body ownership, they will become less sensitive to small temperature changes on real hand.
 
However, results proved that they became less sensitive to temperature changes only when they did not have the illusion of virtual body ownership. Therefore, a correlation between illusionʼs strength and temperature changes sensitivity was observed. In other words, the greater ownership illusion was, the less probable was to happen a decrease in temperature variations sensitivity.
 
The research concludes that virtual body and real one become unified into one perception. Real body provides information about body ownership and tactile sensations, whereas virtual body gives visual information about the body; so then, the brain infers a single body representation from both perceptions.
 
The analysis of body ownership changes using virtual reality is essential to understand how brain represents the body. The research increases the knowledge in this area, and provides an objective indicator of body ownership transfer that contributes finally to the different forms of neuropsychological rehabilitation known so far.
 
Article
J. Llobera, M. V. Sánchez Vives and M. Slater. “The relationship between virtual body ownership and temperature sensitivity”. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 2013. DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2013.0300