Sliding perspectives: dissociating ownership from self-location during full body illusions in virtual reality.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience January 1, 2014 Antonella Maselli, Mel Slater
Full-body ownership illusions and shifts in perceived self-location are both components of bodily self-consciousness that can be manipulated through congruent visuotactile stimulation in virtual reality. Although these two components are usually coupled, they can be selectively altered. Self-location was affected when viewing a virtual body from a third-person perspective, but ownership toward the virtual body was experienced only when there was total or partial spatial overlap between the real and virtual body. When the virtual body appeared in far extra-personal space, changes in self-location occurred without ownership. Partial overlap boosted both ownership and perceived self-location change. The findings suggest that self-location changes rely on visuotactile peripersonal space representations, while ownership depends on visuo-proprioceptive signals.