59 research outputs found
A deep active inference model of the rubber-hand illusion
Understanding how perception and action deal with sensorimotor conflicts,
such as the rubber-hand illusion (RHI), is essential to understand how the body
adapts to uncertain situations. Recent results in humans have shown that the
RHI not only produces a change in the perceived arm location, but also causes
involuntary forces. Here, we describe a deep active inference agent in a
virtual environment, which we subjected to the RHI, that is able to account for
these results. We show that our model, which deals with visual high-dimensional
inputs, produces similar perceptual and force patterns to those found in
humans.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, Accepted in 1st International Workshop on Active
Inference, in Conjunction with European Conference of Machine Learning 2020.
The final authenticated publication is available online at
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64919-7_1
Recommended from our members
When passive feels active - delusion-proneness alters self-recognition in the moving rubber hand illusion
Psychotic patients have problems with bodily self-recognition such as the experience of self-produced actions (sense of agency) and the perception of the body as their own (sense of ownership). While it has been shown that such impairments in psychotic patients can be explained by hypersalient processing of external sensory input it has also been suggested that they lack normal efference copy in voluntary action. However, it is not known how problems with motor predictions like efference copy contribute to impaired sense of agency and ownership in psychosis or psychosis-related states. We used a rubber hand illusion based on finger movements and measured sense of agency and ownership to compute a bodily self-recognition score in delusion-proneness (indexed by Peters’ Delusion Inventory - PDI). A group of healthy subjects (n=71) experienced active movements (involving motor predictions) or passive movements (lacking motor predictions). We observed a highly significant correlation between delusion-proneness and self-recognition in the passive conditions, while no such effect was observed in the active conditions. This was seen for both ownership and agency scores. The result suggests that delusion-proneness is associated with hypersalient external input in passive conditions, resulting in an abnormal experience of the illusion. We hypothesize that this effect is not present in the active condition because deficient motor predictions counteract hypersalience in psychosis proneness
Owning an overweight or underweight body: distinguishing the physical, experienced and virtual body
Our bodies are the most intimately familiar objects we encounter in our perceptual environment. Virtual reality provides a unique method to allow us to experience having a very different body from our own, thereby providing a valuable method to explore the plasticity of body representation. In this paper, we show that women can experience ownership over a whole virtual body that is considerably smaller or larger than their physical body. In order to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying body ownership, we use an embodiment questionnaire, and introduce two new behavioral response measures: an affordance estimation task (indirect measure of body size) and a body size estimation task (direct measure of body size). Interestingly, after viewing the virtual body from first person perspective, both the affordance and the body size estimation tasks indicate a change in the perception of the size of the participant’s experienced body. The change is biased by the size of the virtual body (overweight or underweight). Another novel aspect of our study is that we distinguish between the physical, experienced and virtual bodies, by asking participants to provide affordance and body size estimations for each of the three bodies separately. This methodological point is important for virtual reality experiments investigating body ownership of a virtual body, because it offers a better understanding of which cues (e.g. visual, proprioceptive, memory, or a combination thereof) influence body perception, and whether the impact of these cues can vary between different setups
Embodiment and body awareness in meditators
[EN] Mindfulness practice consists of focusing attention in an intentional way on the experience of the present moment, including bodily sensations, thoughts or feelings, and the environment, with an attitude of acceptance and without judging. The body and, especially, body awareness are key elements in mindfulness. Embodiment or the feeling of being located within one's physical body is a related concept, and it is composed of the sense of ownership, location, and agency of the body. The rubber hand illusion (RHI) is an experimental paradigm that has been used to understand the mechanisms of embodiment, and evidence shows that body awareness modulates this illusion. To our knowledge, no studies have analyzed embodiment processes in meditators. The aim of this study is to use the RHI to analyze the mechanisms of embodiment and its relationship with body awareness and mindfulness in meditators and non-meditators. The sample was composed of long-term meditators (n = 15) and non-meditators (n = 15). Objective and self-report measures for embodiment with the RHI and self-report questionnaires of body awareness and mindfulness were administered. One-way ANOVA revealed significant differences between groups in sense of agency in the rubber hand. Meditators experienced less sense of agency in the rubber hand than non-meditators. Pearson's correlations showed that this lower sense of agency in the rubber hand was associated with higher body awareness and mindfulness. Results highlight the role of body awareness and mindfulness in embodiment mechanisms. This study has clinical implications, especially in psychopathological disorders that can be influenced by disturbances in these processes.The authors would like to acknowledge the "BODYTA" project (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, PSI2014-51928-R), "PROMOSAM" (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, PSI2014-56303-REDT), and "Excellence Research Program PROMETEO II" (Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte, PROMETEOII/2013/003). CIBERobn is an initiate of the ISCIII. PROMOSAM Excellence in Research Program (PSI2014-56303-REDT), MINECO, Spain.Cebolla, A.; Miragall, M.; Palomo, P.; Llorens Rodríguez, R.; Soler, J.; Demarzo, M.; García Campayo, J.... (2016). Embodiment and body awareness in meditators. Mindfulness. 7(6):1297-1305. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-016-0569-xS1297130576Aguado, J., Luciano, J. V., Cebolla, A., Serrano-Blanco, A., Soler, J., & García-Campayo, J. (2015). Bifactor analysis and construct validity of the five facet mindfulness questionnaire (FFMQ) in non-clinical Spanish samples. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 404.Arzy, S., Thut, G., Mohr, C., Michel, C. M., & Blanke, O. (2006). Neural basis of embodiment: distinct contributions of temporoparietal junction and extrastriate body area. The Journal of Neuroscience, 26(31), 8074–8081.Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Hopkins, J., Krietemeyer, J., & Toney, L. (2006). Using self-report assessment methods to explore facets of mindfulness. Assessment, 13(1), 27–45.Bishop, S. R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N. D., Carmody, J., et al. (2004). Mindfulness: a proposed operational definition. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11(3), 230–241.Bornemann, B., Herbert, B. M., Mehling, W. E., & Singer, T. (2015). Differential changes in self-reported aspects of interoceptive awareness through 3 months of contemplative training. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1504.Botvinick, M., & Cohen, J. (1998). Rubber hands “feel” touch that eyes see. Nature, 391(6669), 756–756.Calsius, J., Courtois, I., Stiers, J., & De Bie, J. (2015). How do fibromyalgia patients with alexithymia experience their body? A qualitative approach. SAGE Open, 5, 1–10.Cascio, C. J., Foss-Feig, J. H., Burnette, C. P., Heacock, J. L., & Cosby, A. A. (2012). The rubber hand illusion in children with autism spectrum disorders: delayed influence of combined tactile and visual input on proprioception. Autism, 16(4), 406–419.Cebolla, A., Garcia-Palacios, A., Soler, J., Guillen, V., Baños, R., & Botella, C. (2012). Psychometric properties of the Spanish validation of the Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). The European Journal of Psychiatry, 26(2), 118–126.Cebolla, A., Vara, M. D., Miragall, M., Palomo, P., & Baños, R. M. (2015). Embodied mindfulness: review of the body’s participation in the changes associated with the practice of mindfulness. Actas españolas de Psiquiatría, 43, 36–41.Cioffi, D. (1991). Sensory awareness versus sensory impression: affect and attention interact to produce somatic meaning. Cognition & Emotion, 5(4), 275–294.Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.Craig, A. D. (2009). How do you feel—now? The anterior insula and human awareness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(1), 59–70.Dreeben, S. J., Mamberg, M. H., & Salmon, P. (2013). The MBSR body scan in clinical practice. Mindfulness, 4(4), 394–401.Dummer, T., Picot-Annand, A., Neal, T., & Moore, C. (2009). Movement and the rubber hand illusion. Perception, 38(2), 271.Dunn, B. D., Galton, H. C., Morgan, R., Evans, D., Oliver, C., Meyer, M., et al. (2010). Listening to your heart. How interoception shapes emotion experience and intuitive decision making. Psychological Science, 21(12), 1835–1844.Ehrsson, H. H., Spence, C., & Passingham, R. E. (2004). That’s my hand! Activity in premotor cortex reflects feeling of ownership of a limb. Science, 305(5685), 875–877.Eshkevari, E., Rieger, E., Longo, M. R., Haggard, P., & Treasure, J. (2012). Increased plasticity of the bodily self in eating disorders. Psychological Medicine, 42(04), 819–828.Farb, N., Daubenmier, J. J., Price, C. J., Gard, T., Kerr, C., Dunn, B., et al. (2015). Interoception, contemplative practice, and health. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 763.Fox, K. C., Zakarauskas, P., Dixon, M., Ellamil, M., Thompson, E., Christoff, K., et al. (2012). Meditation experience predicts introspective accuracy. PLoS ONE, 7(9), e45370.Grossman, P., Tiefenthaler-Gilmer, U., Raysz, A., & Kesper, U. (2007). Mindfulness training as an intervention for fibromyalgia: evidence of postintervention and 3-year follow-up benefits in well-being. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 76(4), 226–233.Holmes, N. P., Snijders, H. J., & Spence, C. (2006). Reaching with alien limbs: visual exposure to prosthetic hands in a mirror biases proprioception without accompanying illusions of ownership. Perception & Psychophysics, 68(4), 685–701.Hölzel, B. K., Ott, U., Gard, T., Hempel, H., Weygandt, M., Morgen, K., et al. (2008). Investigation of mindfulness meditation practitioners with voxel-based morphometry. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 3(1), 55–61.Hölzel, B. K., Lazar, S. W., Gard, T., Schuman-Olivier, Z., Vago, D. R., & Ott, U. (2011). How does mindfulness meditation work? Proposing mechanisms of action from a conceptual and neural perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(6), 537–559.Kalckert, A., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2012). Moving a rubber hand that feels like your own: a dissociation of ownership and agency. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 40.Karnath, H. O., & Baier, B. (2010). Right insula for our sense of limb ownership and self-awareness of actions. Brain Structure and Function, 214(5-6), 411–417.Keizer, A., Smeets, M. A., Postma, A., van Elburg, A., & Dijkerman, H. C. (2014). Does the experience of ownership over a rubber hand change body size perception in anorexia nervosa patients? Neuropsychologia, 62, 26–37.Kerr, C. E., Sacchet, M. D., Lazar, S. W., Moore, C. I., & Jones, S. R. (2013). Mindfulness starts with the body: somatosensory attention and top-down modulation of cortical alpha rhythms in mindfulness meditation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 12.Lakhan, S. E., & Schofield, K. L. (2013). Mindfulness-based therapies in the treatment of somatization disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS ONE, 8(8), e71834.Lazar, S. W., Kerr, C. E., Wasserman, R. H., Gray, J. R., Greve, D. N., Treadway, M. T., et al. (2005). Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. Neuroreport, 16(17), 1893–1897.Longo, M. R., Schüür, F., Kammers, M. P., Tsakiris, M., & Haggard, P. (2008). What is embodiment? A psychometric approach. Cognition, 107(3), 978–998.McManus, F., Surawy, C., Muse, K., Vazquez-Montes, M., & Williams, J. M. G. (2012). A randomized clinical trial of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy versus unrestricted services for health anxiety (hypochondriasis). Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 80(5), 817–828.Mehling, W. E., Gopisetty, V., Daubenmier, J., Price, C. J., Hecht, F. M., & Stewart, A. (2009). Body awareness: construct and self-report measures. PLoS ONE, 4(5), e5614.Mehling, W. E., Price, C., Daubenmier, J. J., Acree, M., Bartmess, E., & Stewart, A. (2012). The multidimensional assessment of interoceptive awareness (MAIA). PLoS ONE, 7(11), e48230.Mirams, L., Poliakoff, E., Brown, R. J., & Lloyd, D. M. (2013). Brief body-scan meditation practice improves somatosensory perceptual decision making. Consciousness and Cognition, 22(1), 348–359.Moseley, G. L., Olthof, N., Venema, A., Don, S., Wijers, M., Gallace, A., et al. (2008). Psychologically induced cooling of a specific body part caused by the illusory ownership of an artificial counterpart. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(35), 13169–13173.Mussap, A. J., & Salton, N. (2006). A ‘rubber-hand’ illusion reveals a relationship between perceptual body image and unhealthy body change. Journal of Health Psychology, 11(4), 627–639.Naranjo, J. R., & Schmidt, S. (2012). Is it me or not me? Modulation of perceptual-motor awareness and visuomotor performance by mindfulness meditation. BMC Neuroscience, 13(1), 88.Parkin, L., Morgan, R., Rosselli, A., Howard, M., Sheppard, A., Evans, D., et al. (2014). Exploring the relationship between mindfulness and cardiac perception. Mindfulness, 5(3), 298–313.Pollatos, O., Kurz, A. L., Albrecht, J., Schreder, T., Kleemann, A. M., Schöpf, V., et al. (2008). Reduced perception of bodily signals in anorexia nervosa. Eating Behaviors, 9(4), 381–388.Quezada-Berumen, L., González-Ramírez, M. T., Cebolla, A., Soler, J., & García-Campayo, J. (2014). Conciencia corporal y mindfulness: Validación de la versión española de la escala de conexión corporal (SBC). Actas Españolas de Psiquiatría, 42(2), 57–67.Rohde, M., Di Luca, M., & Ernst, M. O. (2011). The rubber hand illusion: feeling of ownership and proprioceptive drift do not go hand in hand. PLoS One, 6(6), e21659.Schauder, K. B., Mash, L. E., Bryant, L. K., & Cascio, C. J. (2015). Interoceptive ability and body awareness in autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 131, 193–200.Sze, J. A., Gyurak, A., Yuan, J. W., & Levenson, R. W. (2010). Coherence between emotional experience and physiology: does body awareness training have an impact? Emotion, 10(6), 803–814.Teper, R., & Inzlicht, M. (2013). Meditation, mindfulness and executive control: the importance of emotional acceptance and brain-based performance monitoring. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8(1), 85–92.Thakkar, K. N., Nichols, H. S., McIntosh, L. G., & Park, S. (2011). Disturbances in body ownership in schizophrenia: evidence from the rubber hand illusion and case study of a spontaneous out-of-body experience. PLoS One, 6(10), e27089.Tran, U. S., Glück, T. M., & Nader, I. W. (2013). Investigating the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ): construction of a short form and evidence of a two‐factor higher order structure of mindfulness. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 69(9), 951–965.Tsakiris, M., & Haggard, P. (2005). The rubber hand illusion revisited: visuotactile integration and self-attribution. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31(1), 80.Tsakiris, M., Tajadura-Jiménez, A., & Costantini, M. (2011). Just a heartbeat away from one’s body: interoceptive sensitivity predicts malleability of body-representations. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 278(1717), 2470–2476.Van Ravesteijn, H., Lucassen, P. L. B. J., Bor, H., Van Weel, C., & Speckens, A. (2013). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for patients with medically unexplained symptoms: a randomized controlled trial. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 82(5), 299–310
Characterizing first and third person viewpoints and their alternation for embodied interaction in virtual reality
Empirical research on the bodily self has shown that the body representation is malleable, and prone to manipulation when conflicting sensory stimuli are presented. Using Virtual Reality (VR) we assessed the effects of manipulating multisensory feedback (full body control and visuo-tactile congruence) and visual perspective (first and third person perspective) on the sense of embodying a virtual body that was exposed to a virtual threat. We also investigated how subjects behave when the possibility of alternating between first and third person perspective at will was presented. Our results support that illusory ownership of a virtual body can be achieved in both first and third person perspectives under congruent visuo-motor-tactile condition. However, subjective body ownership and reaction to threat were generally stronger for first person perspective and alternating condition than for third person perspective. This suggests that the possibility of alternating perspective is compatible with a strong sense of embodiment, which is meaningful for the design of new embodied VR experiences
A model of acceptance of augmented-reality interactive technology: the moderating role of cognitive innovativeness
Recommended from our members
Rubber hands in space: the role of distance and relative position in the rubber hand illusion
The rubber hand illusion (RHI) is a perceptual phenomenon in which participants experience ownership over a fake model hand through synchronous visuotactile stimulation. Several studies have shown that the illusion occurs only when both hands are in close proximity to each other. In the present study, we systematically examined the role of relative position (lateral, distal) and distance (13-75 cm) of the model hand (with respect to participants' real hand) on illusion experience across both lateral and distal positions. Furthermore, we also compared different facets of the subjective illusion experience; the experience of the model hand being part of one's body (i.e., ownership) and the perceptual fusion of vision and touch (i.e., referral of touch). In two experiments we observed indications for a stronger illusion experiences in distal compared to lateral positions of identical distances, indicating that the illusory effects may vary as a function of the relative position of the hand. Our results also showed that manipulations of distance differently modulated both facets of the illusion. While ownership was restricted to near distances, referral of touch sensations remained stable at farther distances. These results are interpreted in relation to variations in sensory weighting across different planes
Studentische Kongresse als Ergänzung zum regulären Unterricht am Beispiel des Themas "Gewalt"
Voxel-based morphometry reveals structural changes in parietal polymodal areas of grapheme-color synesthetes
- …