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  4. Turning Body and Self Inside Out. Visualized Heartbeats Alter Bodily Self-Consciousness and Tactile Perception
 
research article

Turning Body and Self Inside Out. Visualized Heartbeats Alter Bodily Self-Consciousness and Tactile Perception

Aspell, Jane Elizabeth
•
Heydrich, Lukas  
•
Marillier, Guillaume
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2013
Psychological Science -Cambridge-

Prominent theories highlight the importance of bodily perception for self-consciousness, but it is currently not known whether bodily perception is based on interoceptive or exteroceptive signals or on integrated signals from these anatomically distinct systems. In the research reported here, we combined both types of signals by surreptitiously providing participants with visual exteroceptive information about their heartbeat: A real-time video image of a periodically illuminated silhouette outlined participants’ (projected, “virtual”) bodies and flashed in synchrony with their heartbeats. We investigated whether these “cardio-visual” signals could modulate bodily self-consciousness and tactile perception. We report two main findings. First, synchronous cardio-visual signals increased self-identification with and self-location toward the virtual body, and second, they altered the perception of tactile stimuli applied to participants’ backs so that touch was mislocalized toward the virtual body. We argue that the integration of signals from the inside and the outside of the human body is a fundamental neurobiological process underlying self-consciousness.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1177/0956797613498395
Web of Science ID

WOS:000328241500011

Author(s)
Aspell, Jane Elizabeth
Heydrich, Lukas  
Marillier, Guillaume
Lavanchy, Tom
Herbelin, Bruno  
Blanke, Olaf  
Date Issued

2013

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Published in
Psychological Science -Cambridge-
Volume

24

Issue

12

Start page

2445

End page

2453

Subjects

self-consciousness

•

heartbeat

•

interoception

•

tactile perception

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LNCO  
Available on Infoscience
November 6, 2013
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/96753
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