Virtual Reality Study of the Influence of Bodily Self-Consciousness on Episodic Memory
Year: 2022
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: In everyday life, our conscious experience of the world is permeated by a strong sense of existing as a subject, distinct from its environment: this experience is referred to as bodily self-consciousness. The integrity of bodily self-consciousness depends on the multisensory and motor information received and processed continuously in an implicit way by the brain, which contributes to the feeling that our body belongs to us and that we are anchored in the body from which we perceive the world [1]. Episodic memory refers to personally experienced events, unique and located in time and space, which we can recall with objective details and subjective ones [2].The research project aims to study the influence of bodily self-consciousness on the encoding in episodic memory of new events encountered in an ecological context, and their long-term recollection. Indeed, the usual assessments of episodic memory investigate the memory of simplistic items (words or images). Virtual reality provides many advantages to study the richness and complexity of episodic memory: it is a technology that enables the embodiment of a virtual body with a strong sense of presence and offers an experimental environment with immersive 3D scenes that preserve the multisensory richness of real-life events, while enabling control and standardization of the experiments.We conducted an innovative experiment that involves immersing participants in a virtual city, via a virtual reality headset. In the city, they embody an avatar and encounter daily life events that aim to be incidentally encoded in episodic memory. The virtual avatar is either synchronized with the participant or temporally desynchronized with a delay compared to the participant’s movements. The synchronized avatar is supposed to enhance bodily self-consciousness due to the dependence of this consciousness on multisensory and motor information integrated by the brain, while the desynchronized avatar is supposed to impair it. At the end of the navigations, participants perform a recognition memory task, a phenomenological assessment of their memories, as well as a delayed free recall one month later.The main hypothesis of the project is that the embodiment in a virtual avatar, induced by avatar synchronization, leads to increased performance in episodic memory.Since disturbances in the sense of self and memory are found in several psychiatric disorders [3], the current study intends to be extended to patients with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. This will be the first step before considering the possible development of a virtual reality training program aimed at reducing psychiatric symptoms through improved bodily self-consciousness and episodic memory.[1] O. Blanke. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2012, 13(8), 556‑571.[2] P. Piolino, B. Desgranges and F. Eustache. Neuropsychologia, 2009, 47(11), 2314‑2329.[3] C. Mam-Lam-Fook, 2017, thèse de doctorat de Psychologie : Université Paris Descartes, Paris.
Source: HAL
Language: English
Subfield: Human-Computer Interaction
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4400760198