Full-Body Ownership Illusion Can Change Our Emotion

Recent advances in technology have allowed users to experience an illusory feeling of full body ownership of a virtual avatar. Such virtual embodiment has the power to elicit perceptual, behavioral or cognitive changes related to oneself, however, its emotional effects have not yet been rigorously examined. To address this issue, we investigated emotional changes as a function of the level of the illusion (Study 1) and whether changes in the facial expression of a virtual avatar can modulate the effects of the illusion (Study 2). The results revealed that stronger illusory feelings of full body ownership were induced in the synchronous condition, and participants reported higher valence in the synchronous condition in both Studies 1 and 2. The results from Study 2 suggested that the facial expression of a virtual avatar can modulate participants’ emotions. We discuss the prospects of the development of therapeutic techniques using such illusions to help people with emotion-related symptoms such as depression and social anxiety.