Using Virtual Reality to investigate the sense of self

使用虚拟现实研究自我意识

• 批准号: ES/Y008316/1
• 负责人: Jamie Moffatt
• 金额: $ 16.34万
• 依托单位: Royal Holloway University of London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FY008316%2F1
• 关键词: Using; Virtual; Reality; investigate; sense

The sense of self describes the normally continuous experience of being an "I", of owning a body and actions that we control and experience from a first-person perspective. Although typically intact, these senses can sometimes be disrupted. Dissociation, for example, describes a set of experiences which involve feeling detached from one's own body, from the outside world, or from one's own emotions. In my PhD, I demonstrated how the smooth integration of different senses is key to maintaining the sense of one's own body. Using mixed-reality, I added a slight time delay between the sight and tactile feeling of a touch to the hand delivered by either the participant themselves or another person, which caused people to feel a loss of ownership over their body (Roel Lesur et al., 2020). People with greater dissociation in their daily life reported a stronger loss of ownership over their body in the lab. Crucially, this research highlighted a potential mechanism for dissociative experiences, namely multisensory integration, which could be targeted by future treatments for this transdiagnostic mental health symptom. As my PhD Research demonstrated, the rise in availability of Virtual Reality equipment offers a powerful tool for investigating embodiment (Kilteni et al, 2012). In VR, one can experience having a virtual body that is entirely different from one's own, and in Mixed-Reality, an extension of VR, virtual objects or manipulations can be applied to an individual's true body. At the same time, the ever-expanding use of VR beyond academic research, for example in the metaverse, poses new questions about how we experience embodiment and selfhood. The metaverse can be understood as a fusion of the real world and digital worlds experienced in VR or MR. The metaverse concept already exists in multi-player online video games, but tech giants like Microsoft and Meta are keen to bring the metaverse to all walks of life, from shopping to social media (Rivea & Wiederhold, 2022). How individuals want to experience themselves or their bodies in the metaverse is a timely and tricky question, the investigation of which could be enabled through tasks such as those used in my PhD. Such research has the potential to inform future policy on how the metaverse is implemented and governed.A novel finding of my PhD research was that sensations of induced body dis-ownership, achieved with mixed-reality, were related to the types of experiences reported in dissociation. It may be possible that future therapies may be able to use the controlled, temporary feeling of induced body dis-ownership to help people learn how to cope with their real life experiences of dissociation. A similar example exists in treatments for height phobias, where VR simulations of being in high places have proven to be effective tools in treating phobias (Freeman et al., 2018). My PhD research demonstrated the potential for a similar approach with dissociative experiences.The proposed fellowship aims to maximise these potential impacts of my PhD research, by building and enhancing my publication record (O1) and developing my professional networks in this field (O2), both of which will help to disseminate my PhD findings to wider audiences. Additionally, I will develop my skills in VR programming (O3), which will be leveraged to create an open-source, engaging and accessible version of the mixed-reality task used in my PhD. Completing these aims will consolidate my PhD work, position me as a leader in the field of investigating the sense of self with digital technologies and contribute to my development as an independent researcher capable of leading academic research and securing early career investigator grants such as the ESRC new investigator grant.

自我意识描述了成为“ I”，拥有我们从第一人称角度控制和经验的身体和行为的通常经历。尽管通常完好无损，但这些感官有时会受到破坏。例如，分离描述了一系列经验，这些经历涉及与自己的身体，外界或自己的情绪脱离的感觉。在我的博士学位上，我演示了不同感官的平滑整合是保持自己身体意识的关键。使用混合现实，我在参与者本身或其他人交付的手之间的视线和触觉感觉之间增加了少量的时间延迟，这使人们感到自己的身体失去了所有权（Roel Lesur等人。，2020）。在日常生活中分离较大的人报告说，在实验室中，其身体的所有权损失更大。至关重要的是，这项研究强调了分离经验的潜在机制，即多感官融合，这可以通过未来对这种经诊断性心理健康症状的治疗方法来针对。正如我的博士研究所表明的那样，虚拟现实设备的可用性上升为研究实施例提供了强大的工具（Kilteni等，2012）。在VR中，可以体验一个虚拟机构，该虚拟体与自己的虚拟主体完全不同，并且在混合现实中，可以将VR，虚拟对象或操纵的扩展应用于个人的真实身体。同时，不断扩展的VR超越学术研究（例如，在Metaverse中）提出了有关我们如何体验体验和自我身份的新问题。荟萃分析可以理解为现实世界中的融合和在VR或MR中经历的数字世界。元概念已经存在于多玩家在线视频游戏中，但是像Microsoft和Meta这样的科技巨头渴望将元元音带入各行各业，从购物到社交媒体（Rivea＆Wiederhold，2022年）。个人想要在元评估中如何体验自己或身体是一个及时且棘手的问题，可以通过我的博士学位中使用的任务来启动调查。这样的研究有可能告知未来政策，以实施和管理元的元研究。我的博士学位研究的新发现是，以混血性实现的诱发人体所有权的感觉与报道的经验类型有关解离。未来的疗法可能有可能使用受控的，诱发的身体失去所有权的暂时感觉来帮助人们学习如何应对他们的现实生活中的分离经验。在治疗高恐惧症治疗中也存在类似的例子，在该治疗中，VR在高处的VR模拟被证明是治疗恐惧症的有效工具（Freeman等，2018）。我的博士学位研究证明了通过分离经验进行类似方法的潜力。拟议的奖学金旨在通过建立和增强我的出版记录（O1）并在该领域（O2）中发展我的专业网络（O2），旨在最大程度地提高我的博士研究的潜在影响。这两者都将有助于将我的博士学位调查结果传播给更广泛的观众。此外，我将在VR编程（O3）中发展自己的技能，该技能将被利用来创建我博士中使用的混合现实任务的开源，引人入胜且易于访问的版本。完成这些目标将巩固我的博士学位，使我成为通过数字技术调查自我意识的领导者的领导者，并为我作为一个独立研究人员的发展做出贡献新调查员格兰特。