Embodied Perception in Multisensory Contexts

Embodied perception refers to the idea that sensory experience is not a passive reception of stimuli but is deeply rooted in the body’s own signals and actions. In multisensory contexts, inputs from vision, touch, proprioception and internal bodily signals (interoception) are continuously integrated to shape our sense of where we are in space, which body belongs to us and how we interact with the environment. Experimental paradigms such as the rubber-hand illusion and full-body transfer in virtual reality demonstrate that precise temporal and spatial congruence of sensory cues can induce profound shifts in body-ownership and agency. Theoretical advances propose that these phenomena reflect Bayesian predictive processes, whereby the brain constantly generates and updates models of the body’s state to minimise sensory prediction errors. This embodied framework has wide-ranging implications for rehabilitation, healthy behaviour change, human–computer interaction and the understanding of self-other boundaries in social contexts.

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Embodied Perception in Multisensory Contexts publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in embodied perception in multisensory contexts across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Embodiment: The experience of being anchored in and controlling one’s own body.

Body ownership illusion: A perceptual phenomenon in which an external object or virtual body is experienced as part of one’s own body.

Multisensory integration: The process by which the brain combines inputs from different sensory modalities into a coherent perception.

Visuotactile integration: The synchronisation of visual and tactile signals that contributes to body-ownership illusions.

Interoception: The sensing of internal bodily states such as heartbeat, respiration and visceral feelings.

Proprioceptive drift: A shift in perceived limb position towards an artificial or virtual body part during ownership illusions.

Predictive coding: A theoretical framework in which the brain minimises discrepancies between expected and actual sensory inputs by updating internal models.

References

1. Shaping health behaviors beyond reality: A full body illusion to experience the consequences of unhealthy snacking. Computers in Human Behavior (2024).
2. Moving a Rubber Hand that Feels Like Your Own: A Dissociation of Ownership and Agency. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (2012).
3. First Person Experience of Body Transfer in Virtual Reality. PLOS ONE (2010).
4. Multisensory integration across exteroceptive and interoceptive domains modulates self-experience in the rubber-hand illusion. Neuropsychologia (2013).
5. The multisensory basis of the self: From body to identity to others. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2017).
6. Active inference, sensory attenuation and illusions. Cognitive Processing (2013).