If I Were You: Perceptual Illusion of Body Swapping
Valeria I. Petkova*, H. Henrik Ehrsson

Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract

The concept of an individual swapping his or her body with that of
another person has captured the imagination of writers and artists for
decades. Although this topic has not been the subject of investigation
in science, it exemplifies the fundamental question of why we have an
ongoing experience of being located inside our bodies. Here we report
a perceptual illusion of body-swapping that addresses directly this
issue. Manipulation of the visual perspective, in combination with the
receipt of correlated multisensory information from the body was
sufficient to trigger the illusion that another person's body or an
artificial body was one's own. This effect was so strong that people
could experience being in another person's body when facing their own
body and shaking hands with it. Our results are of fundamental
importance because they identify the perceptual processes that produce
the feeling of ownership of one's body.

<http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003832>