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Future Paths of Phenomenology

1st OPHEN Summer Meeting

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123096

Video ergo sum

Manipulating bodily self-consciousness

Bigna LenggenhagerTej TadiThomas MetzingerOlaf Blanke

pp. 1096-1099

Abstract

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.

Publication details

Published in:

(2007) Science 317.

Pages: 1096-1099

DOI: 10.1126/science.1143439

Full citation:

Lenggenhager Bigna, Tadi Tej, Metzinger Thomas, Blanke Olaf (2007) „Video ergo sum: Manipulating bodily self-consciousness“. Science 317, 1096–1099.