Multisensory origin of the subjective first-person perspective: visual, tactile, and vestibular mechanisms

PLoS One. 2013 Apr 22;8(4):e61751. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0061751. Print 2013.

Abstract

In three experiments we investigated the effects of visuo-tactile and visuo-vestibular conflict about the direction of gravity on three aspects of bodily self-consciousness: self-identification, self-location, and the experienced direction of the first-person perspective. Robotic visuo-tactile stimulation was administered to 78 participants in three experiments. Additionally, we presented participants with a virtual body as seen from an elevated and downward-directed perspective while they were lying supine and were therefore receiving vestibular and postural cues about an upward-directed perspective. Under these conditions, we studied the effects of different degrees of visuo-vestibular conflict, repeated measurements during illusion induction, and the relationship to a classical measure of visuo-vestibular integration. Extending earlier findings on experimentally induced changes in bodily self-consciousness, we show that self-identification does not depend on the experienced direction of the first-person perspective, whereas self-location does. Changes in bodily self-consciousness depend on visual gravitational signals. Individual differences in the experienced direction of first-person perspective correlated with individual differences in visuo-vestibular integration. Our data reveal important contributions of visuo-vestibular gravitational cues to bodily self-consciousness. In particular we show that the experienced direction of the first-person perspective depends on the integration of visual, vestibular, and tactile signals, as well as on individual differences in idiosyncratic visuo-vestibular strategies.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Cues
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Illusions / physiology
  • Male
  • Orientation*
  • Perceptual Distortion
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Touch*
  • Vestibule, Labyrinth / physiology*
  • Visual Perception
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SINERGIA CRSII1-125135), the European Science Foundation (FP7 project VERE) and the Bertarelli Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.