Abstract How do we acquire a mental representation of our own face? Recently, synchronous, but not asynchronous, interpersonal multisensory stimulation (IMS) own to evoke changes in between one’s and another person’s face was used identification (enfacement illusion). We investigated the conscious experience of these changes with principal component analyses (PCA) that revealed that while the conscious experience during synchronous IMS focused on resemblance and similarity with the during asynchronous IMS it focused on multisensory other’s face, stimulation. Analyses on the identified common factor structure revealed significant quantitative differences between synchronous and asynchronous IMS on identification and perceived similarity with the face. Experiment 2 revealed other’s that participants with lower interoceptive sensitivity experienced stronger enfacement illusion. Overall, self-identification and body-ownership rely on similar basic mechanisms of multisensory integration, but the effects of multisensory input on their experience are qualitatively different, possibly underlying the role as a face’s unique marker of selfhood. Keywords: self-face representation; multisensory integration; mirror-recognition; self-identity; enfacement illusion. Introduction Nothing provides so strong a sense of self as seeing own face reflected one’s in a mirror. The familiarity and ease of everyday self-recognition masks the
Abstract How do we acquire a mental representation of our own face? Recently, synchronous, but not asynchronous, interpersonal multisensory stimulation (IMS) between one’s own and another person’s face was used to evoke changes in (enfacement illusion). We investigated the conscious experience of these changes with principal component analyses (PCA) that revealed that while the conscious experience during synchronous IMS focused on resemblance and similarity with the other’s face, during asynchronous IMS it focused on multisensory stimulation. Analyses on the identified common factor structure revealed significant quantitative differences between synchronous and asynchronous IMS on and perceived similarity with the other’s face. Experiment 2 revealed that participants with lower interoceptive sensitivity experienced stronger enfacement illusion. Overall, self-identification and body-ownership rely on similar basic mechanisms of multisensory integration, but the effects of multisensory input on their experience are qualitatively different, possibly underlying the face’s unique role as a marker of selfhood. Keywords: self-face representation; multisensory integration; mirror-recognition; self-identity; enfacement illusion. Introduction Nothing provides so strong a sense of self as seeing one’s own face reflected in a mirror. The familiarity and ease of everyday self-recognition masks the identification identification