Selective distortion of body image by asynchronous visuotactile stimulation

In the rubber hand illusion (RHI), a rubber hand is felt as being part of one’s body. This illusion is evoked by providing synchronous visuotactile stimulation to the fake and real hands. Asynchronous visuotactile stimulation is known not to produce such an illusion of ownership, being commonly used as the control condition. Here we explored the impact of synchronous and asynchronous visuotactile stimulation on the body image. We combined the induction of the RHI with a quantitative test for the internal representation of body metrics (i.e., the positions of key fiducial points on the body relative to each other). We found a significant recalibration of the upper/lower arm lengths following asynchronous visuotactile stimulation. In particular, we observed a selective elongation of the lower arm, a distortion typical of deafferentation. Conversely, synchronous visuotactile stimulation did not alter the estimation of the arm segments' length. Our findings are consistent with a dynamic internal representation of body image that is continuously updated based on incoming multisensory information. Furthermore, the use of asynchronous multisensory stimulation as a neutral condition should be reconsidered since it introduces changes in the body image.