Modulation of a Rubber Hand Illusion by Different Levels of Mental Workload: An EEG Study
Source abstract
Abstract
The current study aimed to investigate the impact of externally evoked mental workload on the level of an artificial hand ownership sensation, a component of the embodiment phenomenon (feeling an external object, in this case a fake upper limb, as part of one’s body). The process of embodiment is extensively investigated in the literature also to find solutions for promoting the acceptance of prosthetic limbs. Before a traditional procedure for summoning in healthy subjects a Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI), the participants performed memory-related tasks in easy or demanding conditions to generate, respectively, low and high mental workloads. Alongside the behavioral correlates of the body ownership in the form of a proprioceptive drift (the measure of the correspondence between the perceived position of the actual limb and the fake one), EEG data was also collected. The results, both behavioral and neural, suggest that a high mental workload before the RHI experience leads to a low level of body ownership, whereas a low one enhances it. This can be interpreted as a consequence of distracting mental resources (possibly a specific type of them) from the embodiment stimulation session.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Action Observation and Synchronization · Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts · Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
Rehab Technologies Lab, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, 16163 Genoa, Italy
Microtechnology for Neuroelectronics, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, 16163 Genoa, Italy
Bristol Robotics Laboratory, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK
Funding
European Union—NextGenerationEU · Ministry of University and Research (MUR)
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