Towards a digital body: the virtual arm illusion
Open accessAbstract
The integration of the human brain with computers is an interesting new area of applied neuroscience, where one application is replacement of a person's real body by a virtual representation. Here we demonstrate that a virtual limb can be made to feel part of your body if appropriate multisensory correlations are provided. We report an illusion that is invoked through tactile stimulation on a person's hidden real right hand with synchronous virtual visual stimulation on an aligned 3D stereo virtual arm projecting horizontally out of their shoulder. An experiment with 21 male participants showed displacement of ownership towards the virtual hand, as illustrated by questionnaire responses and proprioceptive drift. A control experiment with asynchronous tapping was carried out with a different set of 20 male participants who did not experience the illusion. After 5 min of stimulation the virtual arm rotated. Evidence suggests that the extent of the illusion was also correlated with the degree of muscle activity onset in the right arm as measured by EMG during this period that the arm was rotating, for the synchronous but not the asynchronous condition. A completely virtual object can therefore be experienced as part of one's self, which opens up the possibility that an entire virtual body could be felt as one's own in future virtual reality applications or online games, and be an invaluable tool for the understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying body ownership.
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An illusion of the same intensity can be developed over a virtual hand by either synchronous visuotactile or visuomotor correlations.
“An illusion of the same intensity can be also developed over a virtual hand by either synchronous visuotactile [49] or visuomotor [50] correlations.”
From Changing bodies changes minds: Owning another body affects social cognition (2015) · cites this paper as [49]
A virtual arm with same length and laterality as the real arm can become part of the body representation when it moves with the same spatiotemporal pattern as the real one.
“Here, we extended the results of the VHI [12], [13] by showing that a virtual arm with same length and laterality as the real arm can become part of the body representation when it moves with the same spatiotemporal pattern as the real one”
From Extending body space in immersive virtual reality: a very long arm illusion (2012) · cites this paper as [12]
When people see a life-sized virtual body from first person perspective in virtual reality, they are likely to have the perceptual illusion that it is their body.
“When people see a life-sized virtual body (VB) from first person perspective in virtual reality they are likely to have the perceptual illusion that it is their body.”
From Conversations between self and self as Sigmund Freud—A virtual body ownership paradigm for self counselling (2015) · cites this paper as [12]
IVR provides a powerful method for producing body ownership illusions, and the equivalent illusion to the RHI has been demonstrated using IVR.
“IVR provides a particularly powerful method for the production of such body ownership illusions and the equivalent illusion to the RHI has been demonstrated using this12.”
From Conversations between self and self as Sigmund Freud—A virtual body ownership paradigm for self counselling (2015) · cites this paper as [12]
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- Authors
- Slater, M.
- Affiliations
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ES)
- Corresponding author
- Slater, Mel
- ORCID
- Slater, Mel
- Venue
- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2008
- Volume
- 2
- Pages
- 6-6
- ISSN
- 1662-5161 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2572198
- OpenAlex
- W1980002329
- Cited by
- 570
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 26 · 2025: 37 · 2024: 51 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 69 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 35 · 2018: 40 · 2017: 32 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 22 · 2014: 35 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 17
- FWCI
- 38.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Dipòsit Digital de la Universitat de Barcelona (Universitat de Barcelona) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- RECERCAT (Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- European Commission (27731)
- Stiftelsen för Strategisk Forskning
- Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
- Medical Research Council
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Keywords
- body ownership, multisensory integration, proprioception, virtual reality, tactile stimulation, proprioceptive drift, electromyography, body image, digital body
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