Disownership and disembodiment of the real limb without visuoproprioceptive mismatch

Abstract

The brain is able to sustain multiple bodily representations, and it is still unclear whether real body parts can be disembodied during the embodiment of fake or illusory body parts. The current experiment attempted to disembody the real hand without the visuoproprioceptive mismatch thought to compromise disembodiment in the rubber hand illusion by providing asynchronous feedback of the hand viewed in its actual location. Participants disowned their real hand and claimed ownership of a synchronous fake hand as measured by ownership questionnaires and skin conductance responses to perceived threat. In contrast, the body schema, as indexed by manual pointing, was only mildly affected, further supporting the distinction between bodily representations. Conflicts in time were more disruptive than conflicts in space for body ownership, while the effect was less so for body schema, schema being more affected by the proximity of vision and proprioception.

Keywords:

• Body image
• Body schema
• Sensorimotor integration
• MIRAGE
• Disembodiment
• Multisensory synchrony