Visual self-motion feedback affects the sense of self in virtual reality

Abstract

We assessed how self-motion affects the visual representation of the self. We constructed a novel virtual reality experiment that systematically varied an avatars motion and also biological sex. Participants were presented with pairs of avatars that visually represented the participant (\"self avatar\"), or another person (\"opposite avatar\"). Avatar motion either corresponded with the participants motion, or was decoupled from the participants motion. The results show that participants identified with i) \"self avatars\" over \"opposite avatars\", ii) avatars moving congruently with self-motion over incongruent motion, and importantly iii) identification with the \"opposite avatar\" over the \"self avatar\" when the opposite avatars motion was congruent with self-motion. Our results suggest that both self-motion and biological sex are relevant to the body schema and body image and that congruent bottom-up visual feedback of self-motion is particularly important for the sense of self and capable of overriding top-down self-identification factors such as biological sex.