The second me: Seeing the real body during humanoid robot embodiment produces an illusion of bi-location.
Consciousness and Cognition November 1, 2016 Laura Aymerich-Franch, Damien Petit, Gowrishankar Ganesh et al.
Synchronized multisensory cues can make healthy people feel as though their self is located outside their body, resembling an out-of-body experience. This study tested whether healthy individuals can also feel a sense of self in two bodies at once. Using a humanoid robot embodiment system, participants received audio-visual feedback and controlled the robot's head movements and walking. When they observed themselves through the embodied robot, they reported an illusion strongly resembling heautoscopy—the experience of seeing one's own body from a second body. The results suggest that a healthy human mind can bi-locate, perceiving self-location and self-identification in two different bodies simultaneously.