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.

自我意识描述了作为“我”的通常持续的体验，拥有我们从第一人称视角控制和体验的身体和行为。虽然这些感觉通常完好无损，但有时会受到干扰。例如，分离描述了一系列涉及感觉与自己的身体、外部世界或自己的情感分离的体验。在我的博士学位中，我证明了不同感官的顺利整合是维持自身身体感觉的关键。使用混合现实，我在参与者自己或另一个人的手触摸的视觉和触觉之间添加了轻微的时间延迟，这导致人们感到失去了对自己身体的所有权（Roel Lesur 等人） .，2020）。日常生活中分离度较高的人报告称，在实验室中对自己身体的所有权丧失得更严重。至关重要的是，这项研究强调了解离体验的潜在机制，即多感觉整合，未来可能会针对这种跨诊断心理健康症状进行治疗。正如我的博士研究表明，虚拟现实设备的可用性的增加为研究体现提供了强大的工具（Kilteni 等人，2012）。在 VR 中，人们可以体验到与自己完全不同的虚拟身体，而在混合现实中，VR 的扩展、虚拟对象或操作可以应用于个人的真实身体。与此同时，虚拟现实在学术研究之外的不断扩大的使用，例如在虚拟宇宙中，提出了关于我们如何体验体现和自我的新问题。元宇宙可以理解为VR或MR中体验的现实世界和数字世界的融合。虚拟宇宙概念已经存在于多人在线视频游戏中，但微软和 Meta 等科技巨头热衷于将虚拟宇宙引入从购物到社交媒体的各行各业（Rivea & Wiederhold，2022）。人们想要如何在虚拟宇宙中体验自己或他们的身体是一个及时而棘手的问题，对此的调查可以通过诸如我的博士论文中使用的任务来实现。此类研究有可能为未来关于如何实施和管理虚拟宇宙的政策提供信息。我的博士研究的一个新发现是，通过混合现实实现的诱导身体剥夺感与报告中报告的体验类型有关。解离。未来的疗法或许能够利用可控的、暂时的诱导身体失去所有权的感觉来帮助人们学习如何应对现实生活中的分离经历。类似的例子也存在于高度恐惧症的治疗中，VR 模拟处于高处已被证明是治疗恐惧症的有效工具（Freeman 等，2018）。我的博士研究证明了采用分离体验的类似方法的潜力。拟议的奖学金旨在通过建立和增强我的发表记录（O1）并发展我在该领域的专业网络（O2），最大限度地提高我的博士研究的潜在影响，这两件事都将有助于向更广泛的受众传播我的博士研究成果。此外，我将发展 VR 编程 (O3) 技能，这将用于创建我的博士学位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工作，使我成为利用数字技术研究自我意识领域的领导者，并有助于我作为一名独立研究人员的发展，能够领导学术研究并获得早期职业研究员资助，例如 ESRC新的调查员补助金。