title: The role of agency for perceived ownership in the virtual hand illusion.
abstract: The rubber hand illusion shows that people can perceive artificial effectors as part of their own body under suitable conditions, and the virtual hand illusion shows the same for virtual effectors. In this study, we compared a virtual version of the rubber-hand setup with a virtual-hand setup, and manipulated the synchrony between stimulation or movement of a virtual "effector" and stimulation or movement of people's own hand, the similarity between virtual effector and people's own hand, and the degree of agency (the degree to which the virtual effector could be controlled by people's own movements). Synchrony-induced ownership illusion was strongly affected by agency but not similarity, which is inconsistent with top-down modulation approaches but consistent with bottom-up approaches to ownership. However, both agency and similarity induce a general bias towards perceiving an object as part of one's body, suggesting that ownership judgments integrate various sources of information.
authors.affiliation: Leiden University, Institute for Psychological Research & Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Ke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Leiden University, Institute for Psychological Research & Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, The Netherlands. Electronic address: hommel@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hommel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011434:Proprioception / Q000502:physiology*; D012649:Self Concept; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Active operated; Body awareness; Body ownership; Non-corporeal; Rubber hand illusion; Sense of agency; Virtual hand illusion