Self-attribution and telepresence

Abstract

Anthropomorphically-designed teleoperation systems may result in the phenomenon of telepresence: The experience of being there at the remote site. Yet, there is another aspect to the phenomenon of telepresence, which has received relatively little attention: Self-identification with the slave robot. In this paper, we aim to further explicate the relationship between self-identification (or self-attribution) and telepresence. For this purpose, we will review recent studies that have used the experimental paradigm of the rubber-hand illusion. In this illusion, people attribute a fake hand to themselves; feeling as if it is actually part of their own bodies. We will discuss the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms behind the brain's remarkable capability to incorporate external objects as phenomenological extensions of the self, and discuss how research on (tele)presence and body-representations can benefit from each other.