TY - JOUR
T1 - Is body dysmorphic disorder associated with abnormal bodily self-awareness? A study using the rubber hand illusion
AU - Kaplan, Ryan Anthony
AU - Enticott, Peter Gregory
AU - Hohwy, Jakob
AU - Castle, David Jonathan
AU - Rossell, Susan Lee
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Evidence from past research suggests that behaviours and characteristics related to body dissatisfaction may be associated with greater instability of perceptual body image, possibly due to problems in the integration of body-related multisensory information. We investigated whether people with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a condition characterised by body image disturbances, demonstrated enhanced susceptibility to the rubber hand illusion (RHI), which arises as a result of multisensory integration processes when a rubber hand and the participant s hidden real hand are stimulated in synchrony. Overall, differences in RHI experience between the BDD group and healthy and schizophrenia control groups (n = 17 in each) were not significant. RHI strength, however, was positively associated with body dissatisfaction and related tendencies. For the healthy control group, proprioceptive drift towards the rubber hand was observed following synchronous but not asynchronous stimulation, a typical pattern when inducing the RHI. Similar drifts in proprioceptive awareness occurred for the BDD group irrespective of whether stimulation was synchronous or not. These results are discussed in terms of possible abnormalities in visual processing and multisensory integration among people with BDD
AB - Evidence from past research suggests that behaviours and characteristics related to body dissatisfaction may be associated with greater instability of perceptual body image, possibly due to problems in the integration of body-related multisensory information. We investigated whether people with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a condition characterised by body image disturbances, demonstrated enhanced susceptibility to the rubber hand illusion (RHI), which arises as a result of multisensory integration processes when a rubber hand and the participant s hidden real hand are stimulated in synchrony. Overall, differences in RHI experience between the BDD group and healthy and schizophrenia control groups (n = 17 in each) were not significant. RHI strength, however, was positively associated with body dissatisfaction and related tendencies. For the healthy control group, proprioceptive drift towards the rubber hand was observed following synchronous but not asynchronous stimulation, a typical pattern when inducing the RHI. Similar drifts in proprioceptive awareness occurred for the BDD group irrespective of whether stimulation was synchronous or not. These results are discussed in terms of possible abnormalities in visual processing and multisensory integration among people with BDD
UR - http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0099981&representation=PDF
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0099981
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0099981
M3 - Article
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 9
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 6
M1 - e99981
ER -