Author: Hiroshima University
Published: 2025/03/21
Publication Type: Research, Study, Analysis
Peer-Reviewed: Yes
Topic: Electronics and Software - Publications List
Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main - Insights, Updates
Synopsis: A study on how imagining pain in VR disrupts body ownership, offering insights into depersonalization and potential clinical applications.
Why it matters: This peer-reviewed study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, explores how top-down interpretation - our prior experiences, expectations, and biases - affects body ownership in virtual reality. Conducted by researchers at Hiroshima University, the study used a full-body illusion (FBI) in VR to test whether imagining a virtual body in pain would disrupt the sense of ownership. Findings indicate that participants with higher depersonalization tendencies struggled more with feeling connected to the virtual body, especially when instructed to perceive it as experiencing pain. This research offers valuable insights into conditions like depersonalization-derealization disorder, which affects body perception, and could contribute to clinical interventions for those experiencing a disconnection from their physical selves, including individuals with disabilities and seniors who may have altered sensory processing - Disabled World (DW).
Introduction
The manipulation of top-down interpretation as one's symptomatic body reduces the sense of body ownership.
A study from Hiroshima University found that when people were told to imagine their virtual bodies in pain, their brains resisted the illusion of ownership. Their findings could provide insights into why some people may struggle with feeling connected to their own bodies, particularly in contexts involving depersonalization or negative physical states.
Main Item
The sense of body ownership - the feeling that our body belongs to us - is crucial in distinguishing ourselves from objects and responding to threats. Researchers study it using techniques like the rubber hand illusion (RHI) and full-body illusion (FBI), in which an individual is somehow influenced to identify with ownership of a fake or virtual body. To explore how body ownership can be disrupted, researchers test whether top-down factors - where previous knowledge, memories, and beliefs shape how we perceive and interpret new information or stimuli - weaken the illusion when participants are asked to identify with a virtual body in a negative physical state.
Researchers published their results in Frontiers in Psychology in December 2024.
"Using the full-body illusion in virtual reality - where people begin to feel a virtual body as their own - we investigated how interpreting the virtual body as one's own body, while in a negative physical state, affects this illusion. This research can possibly relate to depersonalization, a condition where people struggle to feel their body as their own," said Kazuki Yamamoto, researcher and author of the study.
Participants were instructed to view a virtual body from the back using a virtual reality (VR) headset and imagine it as their own. Participants would watch the virtual body have their back stroked while their own physical body was stroked also which successfully illicited the illusion. This is a means of using bottom-up factors, which starts with an external stimulus to integrate visual-tactile information, and is a well-tested way to successfully influence the FBI.
Continued below image.
This illustration shows the experimental setup where participants viewed a virtual body through VR goggles and received touch on their back.
This illustration shows the experimental setup where participants viewed a virtual body through VR goggles and received touch on their back. The experiment revealed that different interpretations of the virtual body led to different outcomes: when interpreted as my body, the illusion occurred, but when interpreted as my body with abdominal pain, the illusion was inhibited - Image Credit: Kazuki Yamamoto and Takashi Nakao, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University. Description of image for vision impaired: The image shows a person wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset, viewed from behind, with two thought bubbles representing different experiences of embodiment in VR. The person is physically touched on their lower back, while their VR avatar is touched in a different location. On the left side, the thought bubble suggests that the participant feels the virtual body as their own, leading to an illusion of body ownership. On the right side, the thought bubble suggests that when the virtual body is associated with pain, the illusion is inhibited. The diagram visually explains how perception in VR can influence the sense of body ownership and pain experience.
Continued...
To test the effect of top-down factors, the same course of action was instructed with the addition of identifying with the virtual body as their own in a negative physical state (feeling abdominal pain). After the participant watches their virtual body being stroked along their back, a fear stimulus is presented in the form of a knife driving into the virtual body's back. The fear response is measured using a skin-conductance response and the degree of conductance measures is then related to how strongly the participant is identifying with their virtual body.
One of the main points of this study is using top-down factors, which are expectation or biases on what something should feel like based on prior experience or interactions, to determine if these can also influence a sense of body ownership.
Results indicated that the full-body illusion was inhibited when asked to view the virtual body as their own with abdominal pain, and the higher the degree of depersonalization tendencies within the participants resulted in a lower degree of FBI.
Researchers suggest this could be due to multiple factors, one of which being the manipulation of using top-down factors. Another suggestion is that the participants might have had difficulty perceiving the negative physical symptoms, therefore they had difficulty fully establishing the connection of "the virtual body is my body" which is key for the illusion to occur.
Given the findings of the study, more research can be done to fully understand why an inhibition of the illusion occurred.
"While we observed this inhibitory effect, further research is needed to determine whether it was specifically due to the negative interpretation or to differences between actual and virtual body states," said Takashi Nakao, researcher and author of the study.
The foundation provided by this study and subsequent studies can aid in clinical intervention for those suffering from disturbed body ownership, such as individuals with depersonalization-derealization disorder. This work can improve those individuals' sense of body ownership, which can greatly improve lives, not only for safety purposes but also sensory and perception purposes.
About the Study
Kazuki Yamamoto and Takashi Nakao of the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hiroshima University contributed to this research.
The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science funded this research.
Hiroshima University
Since its foundation in 1949, Hiroshima University has striven to become one of the most prominent and comprehensive universities in Japan for the promotion and development of scholarship and education. Consisting of 12 schools for undergraduate level and 5 graduate schools, ranging from natural sciences to humanities and social sciences, the university has grown into one of the most distinguished comprehensive research universities in Japan.
Editorial Note: By demonstrating how cognitive interpretation can weaken body ownership illusions, this study opens new pathways for understanding and treating conditions that affect bodily self-awareness. Future research can refine these findings to better support individuals with depersonalization symptoms, chronic pain, or sensory integration challenges. The implications extend beyond psychology, with potential applications in VR therapy, rehabilitation, and assistive technologies that enhance bodily perception for those with neurological or sensory impairments - Disabled World (DW).
Attribution/Source(s): This peer reviewed publication was selected for publishing by the editors of Disabled World (DW) due to its relevance to the disability community. Originally authored by Hiroshima University and published on 2025/03/21, this content may have been edited for style, clarity, or brevity. For further details or clarifications, Hiroshima University can be contacted at hiroshima-u.ac.jp/en NOTE: Disabled World does not provide any warranties or endorsements related to this article.
Citing and References
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Cite This Page: Hiroshima University. (2025, March 21). VR Study Shows How Pain and Fear Disrupt Body Ownership Perception. Disabled World (DW). Retrieved March 21, 2025 from www.disabled-world.com/assistivedevices/computer/pain-fear.php
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