Identifying with the Beautiful: Facial attractiveness effects on unisensory and multisensory self-other distinction (original) (raw)
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Embodiment in the Enfacement Illusion is mediated by self-other overlap
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2024
The enfacement illusion is a facial version of the rubber hand illusion, in which participants experience tactile stimulation of their own face synchronously with observation of the same stimulation applied to another’s face. In previous studies, participants have reported experiencing illusory embodiment of the other’s face following synchronous compared to asynchronous stimulation. In a series of three studies, we addressed three questions: a) how does similarity between the self and the other, operationalised here as being of the same or different gender to the other, impact the experience of embodiment in the enfacement illusion; b) does the experience of embodiment result from alterations to the self-concept; and c) is susceptibility to the experience of embodiment associated with interoceptive processing, i.e., perception of the internal state of the body? Results indicate that embodiment is facilitated by similarity between the self and the other and is mediated by the incorporation of the other into the self-concept; but sensitivity to one’s own internal states does not impact upon embodiment within the enfacement illusion.
The 'Enfacement' illusion: A window on the plasticity of the self
2018
Interoception Predictive coding a b s t r a c t Understanding how self-representation is built, maintained and updated across the lifespan is a fundamental challenge for cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Studies demonstrate that the detection of body-related multisensory congruency builds bodily and facial self-representations that are crucial to developing self-recognition. Studies showing that the bodily self is more malleable than previously believed were mainly concerned with full-bodies and non-facial body parts. Crucially, however, intriguing recent evidence indicates that simple experimental manipulations could even affect self-face representation that has long been considered a stable construct impervious to change. In this review, we discuss how Interpersonal Multisensory Stimulation (IMS) paradigms can be used to temporarily induce Enfacement, i.e., the subjective illusion of looking at oneself in the mirror when in fact looking at another person's face. We show that Enfacement is a subtle but robust phenomenon occurring in a variety of experimental conditions and assessed by multiple explicit and implicit measures. We critically discuss recent findings on i) the role of sensory extero/proprio-ceptive (visual, tactile, and motor) and interoceptive (cardiac) signals in self-face plasticity, ii) the importance of multisensory integration mechanisms for the bodily self, and iii) the neural network related to IMS-driven changes in self-other face processing, within the predictive coding theoretical framework.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2016
Looking at our face in a mirror is one of the strongest phenomenological experiences of the Self in which we need to identify the face as reflected in the mirror as belonging to us. Recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies reported that self-face identification not only relies upon visual-mnemonic representation of one's own face but also upon continuous updating and integration of visuo-tactile signals. Therefore, bodily self-consciousness plays a major role in self-face identification, with respect to interplay between unisensory and multisensory processing. However, if previous studies demonstrated that the integration of multisensory body-related signals contributes to the visual processing of one's own face, there is so far no data regarding how selfface identification, inversely, contributes to bodily self-consciousness. In the present study, we tested whether self-other face identification impacts either the egocentered or heterocentered visuo-spatial mechanisms that are core processes of bodily selfconsciousness and sustain self-other distinction. For that, we developed a new paradigm, named "Double Mirror." This paradigm, consisting of a semi-transparent double mirror and computer-controlled Light Emitting Diodes, elicits self-other face merging illusory effect in ecologically more valid conditions, i.e., when participants are physically facing each other and interacting. Self-face identification was manipulated by exposing pairs of participants to an Interpersonal Visual Stimulation in which the reflection of their faces merged in the mirror. Participants simultaneously performed visuo-spatial and mental own-body transformation tasks centered on their own face (egocentered) or the face of their partner (heterocentered) in the pre-and poststimulation phase. We show that self-other face identification altered the egocentered
Unconscious processing of facial attractiveness: invisible attractive faces orient visual attention
Past research has proven human's extraordinary ability to extract information from a face in the blink of an eye, including its emotion, gaze direction, and attractiveness. However, it remains elusive whether facial attractiveness can be processed and influences our behaviors in the complete absence of conscious awareness. Here we demonstrate unconscious processing of facial attractiveness with three distinct approaches. In Experiment 1, the time taken for faces to break interocular suppression was measured. The results showed that attractive faces enjoyed the privilege of breaking suppression and reaching consciousness earlier. In Experiment 2, we further showed that attractive faces had lower visibility thresholds, again suggesting that facial attractiveness could be processed more easily to reach consciousness. Crucially, in Experiment 3, a significant decrease of accuracy on an orientation discrimination task subsequent to an invisible attractive face showed that attractive faces, albeit suppressed and invisible, still exerted an effect by orienting attention. Taken together, for the first time, we show that facial attractiveness can be processed in the complete absence of consciousness, and an unconscious attractive face is still capable of directing our attention. Nearly 100 years ago, Thorndike 1 has pointed out that the ratings of separate personal traits were influenced by the general impression of the person, namely the " Halo effect ". The Halo effect has paved the path to explain the potency of attractiveness: The more attractive one is conceived, the more positive other personal traits are judged. In fact, being appraised as an attractive person or not plays an important role in one's life, influencing how one is judged 2–4 , how likely one can be hired after an interview 5 , and even how easily an infant catches attention from his/her mother 6. It is a common belief that our conception of beauty results from a mixture of vivid sensation (what we perceive consciously) and close inspection (what we scrutinize): attractiveness does not simply impinge on our retina and reflect itself, it needs to be seen and appreciated. Thus, to judge the attractiveness of a piece of artwork, a scene, and even a face seems to require conscious deliberation. However, previous literature has shown human's extraordinary ability to extract facial attractiveness in extreme cases, making little room for deliberation. Firstly, trait judgments on faces including attractiveness without time constraints correlated significantly with those made after only a 100-ms exposure, showing that first impressions could be formed in the blink of an eye 7. Secondly, infants that were too little to be confined to our social norm (i.e. less than 3 month olds) seem to have a similar standard of attractiveness 8 , suggesting an attractiveness detector is well functioning early in development. Furthermore, it has been shown that even when faces were presented for an extremely brief of time (i.e. 13 ms) so that their identity can not be consciously perceived, participants could still distinguish their attractiveness 9. This line of work has demonstrated that facial attractiveness can be extracted with minimal conscious endeavour, directing us to a counterintuitive hypothesis: attractiveness judgment can be made automatically and unconsciously. Nevertheless, it has never been examined if one could process facial attractiveness in the complete absence of consciousness. Here we directly tested this conundrum in a series of experiments with different approaches. We hypothesized that facial attractiveness could be extracted and even direct attention without one having visual awareness of a face. Continuous flash suppression 10 was utilized to ensure longer suppression time and stronger suppressive power to abolish not just identification but also any visibility of the face, which is the major difference between this interocular suppression and other masking techniques where participants might still be conscious of parts of the stimulus (e.g. crowding 11 ; masking 12). Therefore, being unconscious of a face in all our experiments denotes
Malleability of the self: electrophysiological correlates of the enfacement illusion
Scientific Reports, 2019
self-face representation is fundamentally important for self-identity and self-consciousness. Given its role in preserving identity over time, self-face processing is considered as a robust and stable process. Yet, recent studies indicate that simple psychophysics manipulations may change how we process our own face. Specifically, experiencing tactile facial stimulation while seeing similar synchronous stimuli delivered to the face of another individual seen as in a mirror, induces ‘enfacement’ illusion, i.e. the subjective experience of ownership of the other’s face and a bias in attributing to the self, facial features of the other person. Here we recorded visual Event-Related Potentials elicited by the presentation of self, other and morphed faces during a self-other discrimination task performed immediately after participants received synchronous and control asynchronous Interpersonal Multisensory stimulation (IMs). We found that self-face presentation after synchronous as compared to asynchronous stimulation significantly reduced the late positive potential (LPP; 450–750 ms), a reliable electrophysiological marker of self-identification processes. Additionally, enfacement cancelled out the differences in LPP amplitudes produced by self- and other-face during the control condition. These findings represent the first direct neurophysiological evidence that enfacement may affect self-face processing and pave the way to novel paradigms for exploring defective self-representation and self-other interactions.
One's own face and gaze are never seen directly but only in a mirror. Yet, these stimuli capture attention more powerfully than others' face and gaze, suggesting the self is special for brain and behavior. Synchronous touches felt on one's own and seen on the face of others induce the sensation of including others in one's own face (enfacement). We demonstrate that enfacement may also reduce the overwhelming distracting power of self-gaze. This effect, hereafter called 'engazement', depends on the perceived physical attractiveness and inner beauty of the pair partner. Thus, we highlight for the first time the close link between enfacement and engazement by showing that changes of the self-face representation induced by facial visuo-tactile stimulation extend to gaze following, a separate process likely underpinned by different neural substrates. Moreover, although gaze following is a largely automatic, engazement is penetrable to the influence of social variables, such as positive interpersonal perception.
Context effects on the perceived physical attractiveness of faces
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1984
Four experiments were conducted to study the nature of context effects on the perceived physical attractiveness of faces. In Experiment 1, photos of faces scaled on attractiveness were presented in sets of three, with target faces appearing in the middle flanked by two context faces. The target faces were of average attractiveness, with the context faces being either high, average, or low in attractiveness. The effect of the context was one of assimilation, rather than contrast, regardless of whether the persons in the photos were portrayed to be associated. This result was interpreted in terms of a "generalized halo effect" for judgments of the physical attractiveness of stimuli within a group. Presenting the persons of a set as friends enhanced the perceived attractiveness of the target face but only when the context did not contain a face of low attractiveness. In Experiment 2, the assimilation effect was observed to carry over to influence ratings of the target faces several minutes after the context faces had been removed. Experiment 3 showed the assimilation effect to be robust regardless of whether the context was composed of two faces or one, but Experiment 4 showed the assimilation effect to be evident only when the context faces were presented simultaneously with the target.
Affective Touch Enhances Self-Face Recognition During Multisensory Integration
Scientific reports, 2017
Multisensory integration is a powerful mechanism for constructing body awareness and key for the sense of selfhood. Recent evidence has shown that the specialised C tactile modality that gives rise to feelings of pleasant, affective touch, can enhance the experience of body ownership during multisensory integration. Nevertheless, no study has examined whether affective touch can also modulate psychological identification with our face, the hallmark of our identity. The current study used the enfacement illusion paradigm to investigate the role of affective touch in the modulation of self-face recognition during multisensory integration. In the first experiment (N = 30), healthy participants were stroked on the cheek while they were looking at another face being stroked on the cheek in synchrony or asynchrony with affective (slow; CT-optimal) vs. neutral (fast; CT-suboptimal) touch. In the second experiment (N = 38) spatial incongruence of touch (cheek vs. forehead) was used as a con...